Sudoku and overcoming the fear of numbers

Numbers are just shapes drawn on paper. What they symbolise is relatively straight forward too. Unless you are 5 or 6 years old that is. Children who are at school but who have not grasped how numbers work, find that they are not getting approval for their work, but they don’t really know why, they don’t know what they’re doing wrong… but there are all these other children around them who seem to know what going on, who seem to be able to get their sums right. This is intimidating. The child is not one of the group, and even worse is not getting approval from the adult in the room. They feel isolated. They hide their inability, because they need to be part of the group, they need approval. The teacher should be identifying these children and helping them to understand, but with a classroom full of children, perhaps the child’s problem get missed for a short while. Unfortunately, that short while is long enough for some children to develop a fear of numbers. Whenever they see numbers they cease to be able to think logically because fear sets in, and their minds close down. These children have learnt that these written shapes can separate them from the social group. This can lead to many years of underachievement. One remedial method to help a child overcome a fear of numbers is to teach the child to play sudoku. No maths is involved in sudoku, the numbers are simply used as different shapes, any other 9 ideograms could be used (take your pick from the Chinese dictionary). However, getting a child to play sudoku teaches them that they can manipulate numbers and get them to do what they want them to do within the game, and so helps them overcome their fear of numbers.