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How To Get Better At Math: Study Tips And Tricks

Getting better at math takes daily practice, solid foundations, and the right strategies — and any student can do it. These expert-backed tips cover everything from mastering the basics to building a study routine that sticks.

Key points:

• First, nail down the fundamentals of math, including number sense, operations, and geometry
• Ask your teacher for help, because they are the expert, and consider whether a math tutor could help you improve your knowledge further
• Make math more engaging and interesting by creating distraction-free environments and enlisting gamified learning
• Lean into your own personal learning style — i.e., visual or kinesthetic — by making math problems tangible or using art and drawing to make it more interesting and understandable

How To Get Good At Math?

• Ask a teacher for help
• Master basic math skills
• Don’t miss homework
• Limit distractions and make math fun
• Create a consistent learning routine
• Show your working out
• Become a math teacher
• Visualize your math problems
• Apply math to daily life
• Gamify your math learning
• Practice mental maths
• Use the backwards design method
• Perform practical exercises every day

Ask A Teacher For Help

Teachers can clarify confusing math questions, help you understand a specific problem or topic, and assist you with becoming good at math. They can also provide additional resources or explanations. What’s more, your teachers will even be pleased that you’re curious about mathematics!

Whether you’re stuck on a difficult question or just want to improve in math, it is your teacher who can show you how to solve math problems step by step. If you’re wondering how to be good at math, pose questions to your teacher to upgrade your academic performance.

Get Better At Math With Brighterly

If you need extra guided support outside of the classroom, it could be time to enlist a one-to-one tutor. Our private tutors at Brighterly will be available to you in sessions outside of school, and you can tap into their expertise.

You’ll first complete a simple diagnostic math test, which helps your tutor understand exactly where you need more help. Then, we’ll match you with the tutor best suited to your needs, and they’ll focus only on the areas you need support.

So, why specifically will you become engaged with the Brighterly math program?

• Interactive lessons that will help you improve in math 
• Our award-winning curriculum 
• Personalization of your educational program 
• Interesting 1-on-1 lessons with a tutor for schoolers of all ages

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Our tutors are highly skilled in making you more confident in math.

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Master Basic Math Skills

Before moving on to tricks on getting better at math, it is important to know the basic math topics perfectly. It’s difficult to succeed in anything, including learning math, if you have no clue about the basics.

As you know, it’s the same with learning languages, biology, physics, or even music. For all of these, and especially math, is that they are academic subjects that rely on the basics to introduce successive topics.

Concept	Skills	Ways to get better at math
Arithmetic	– Core math operations, which include subtraction, addition, division, and multiplication – Understanding and comparing numbers and place values – Understanding and working with basic math symbols – Understanding numbers and their value	– Singing math songs – Using drawings or pictures
Geometry	– Identifying shapes – Understanding how geometric properties underpin a range of shapes – Measuring shapes	– Coloring and drawing – Pattern worksheets – Playing a math card game
Algebra	– Understanding the order of operations and their inverse relationships to one another – Spotting patterns – Simplification and factorization	– Cooking – Equal groups activities – Fun math jokes
Statistics	– Reading data and producing graphs from it – Understanding percentages – Collecting, organizing, and analyzing data	– Equal groups activities – Fun math jokes – Drawing and coloring
Trigonometry	– The ability to solve proportions and properties – Understanding and applying graphing functions	– Math quizzes – Math-based word problems
Precalculus and calculus	– Simplifying and factorizing expressions – Understanding and applying graphing functions – Understanding and analyzing symbolic/visual representations	– Playing math-based board games

But note that, whatever your objective and stumbling block, guided support from a tutor focused on your personal needs is the best option to improve your knowledge. 

Don’t Miss Homework

We know you may not enjoy it, but homework is the key to success in math. The information you learn in class must be reinforced at home. Moreover, many schools will not personally study every detail with you every time, so you need to put in the extra work at home to truly understand your math topics and succeed.

How To Be Better At Math By doing Homework?

• Watch videos on the specific math topic. It’s very easy to find videos, for example, on YouTube, that provide clear explanations and examples
• Use topic worksheets. For instance, at Brighterly, you can find math worksheets on various math topics from Pre-K to 9th grade
• The most crucial step is to practice. For practice, you can use online calculators that are available on various online platforms
• Explore online math homework help options

Limit Distractions And Make Math Fun!

To improve your math grades, it is vital to remove distractions from your learning, both at school and at home. If it is almost impossible to control this at public school, you can make sure you create the perfect distraction-free environment at home.

You should also make your learning atmosphere favorable and interactive to stay interested. Whatever your age, you’ll struggle to grasp knowledge if it is introduced in a boring format. If math is made engaging, you’ll become more motivated, involved, and ready to learn mathematical concepts, and you’ll succeed in being good at math.

Create A Consistent Learning Routine

Another thing you can do is to create a regular schedule to practice and study math topics. But many wonder, “How do I get better at math by creating a consistent learning routine at home?”

• Establish a home study schedule and write it on a whiteboard, perhaps on a magnetic board near your desk, or record it digitally on your favorite device.
• Make a regular schedule with your homeschool math online tutor. You should choose the same days and the same time.

Show Your Working Out

Ever wondered why tactics like long division are so effective? It’s because you’re working out your problem as you go, and you can see what you’ve done at every stage. With consistent practice, mental math becomes fluent and automatic, giving students a real edge in class.

While mental math is a key skill, especially for basic sums, not everything has to be done mentally. Solving problems in stages can also help you identify where you went wrong if you don’t solve the problem correctly.

Showing your work can also help you master more complex operations or sums. It’s a win-win!

Become A Math Teacher

Have you heard of the protégé effect? It’s the effect of solidifying your own learning as you teach another person. The protégé effect works so well because, in order to teach others, you need to engage deeply with the subject. So if you’re looking for how to improve math skills for yourself, you can give your parents or friends a quick lesson on basic math operations.

It’s a great way to boost your confidence, too, especially if you give your parents a math lesson – imparting wisdom on a grown-up is a sure-fire way to make you feel smart and knowledgeable! 

Visualize Your Math Problems

Not everyone is an analytical problem solver. Some people are visual learners, so if that’s you, use this to your advantage by visualizing tricky math problems. 

Visualizing math problems can work in several ways. If you are a more artistic type, you can use sketches to visualize your problem.

Let’s say you’re working on a scenario-based problem, such as how many apples someone will have if they start with 12 and give away 5. Drawing those apples and manually crossing out or erasing the 5 can help you visualize the numbers.

Apply Math In Your Daily Life

You might think of math as just another school subject, but it’s actually a life skill that everyone needs. You need basic math skills in everyday life tasks, from paying for groceries to weighing out ingredients for cooking.

It’s useful to be able to quickly calculate numbers in your head. For example, keeping track of the cost of your groceries as you go around the shop, or instantly working out the discount on a t-shirt.

Pay attention to the situations in your everyday life where math is a factor. This could be spending your pocket money, baking with your parents, or working out how long it takes to walk to school. The more you actively pay attention, the better you’ll get and the more you’ll appreciate math as a subject. Applying math to real life has been shown to prepare students for future success, per a 2023 study in the IJCRD journal.

Gamify Your Math Learning

You might be one of those learners who think math is just boring. This can feel especially true when you feel like you need repetition to master math concepts. But by incorporating math games into your learning, you can really increase your math skills.

• Board games are a great way to practice math without even thinking about it. Playing Monopoly, for example, helps you add and subtract numbers quickly and easily, as well as teach budgeting skills.
• Card games can also help you to flex your math muscles in a way that doesn’t feel like learning. You can try mastering age-appropriate games like solitaire. As an added bonus, gamified learning can not only help you improve your math skills and learn new concepts faster, but it also helps you to retain the information for longer!

Practice Mental Math

To boost math skills, it is helpful to practice mental math. This will allow you to count in your head, aka without using pencil, paper, or electronic devices.

Mental math will be useful at school for quickly solving problems and understanding concepts.

Even when you’re solving problems in other academic subjects, it will have a positive impact on everyday life. You will be able to quickly answer questions like “When should I leave to arrive on time?” or “What change will be left after buying groceries?”

Best ways to practice mental math

• Practice breaking the addition or subtraction problem into parts and solving it in parts. 

• Adjust to get round numbers, then correct after the problem is done. This makes it much easier to solve addition, subtraction, or even multiplication and division problems.
• Practice adding many numbers at once. To do this, you need to imagine the numbers in such a way as to get a convenient sum. Look for the numbers given at the final when adding numbers like 20 or 40.
• Improve your math skills by multiplying from left to right.

Use The Backwards Design Method

When solving math problems, students often jump right into the calculations. 

With backwards design, the idea is to first identify the final answer you need to get. Then you identify and write out the steps to take to get there.

This method helps make the problem-solving process clearer, and also identifies gaps in understanding before doing the calculations. 

Perform Practical Exercises Every Day

The most effective strategy on how to get smarter in math is to practice math every day. Even if there was no math lesson at school today, you should practice math problems daily, and spend at least 15-30 minutes on it.

How To Become Good At Math Via Everyday Practice

• Use manipulatives for counting and basic operations
• Participate in math games and puzzles
• Apply measurements in cooking and baking
• Explore geometry by constructing buildings and structures
• Create graphs and charts based on real data
• Install math in art and the outdoors
• Weave math concepts into stories and math problem-solving
• Explore after school math program options

Hands-on activities like cooking measurements or geometry construction make abstract math ideas tangible and engaging. By creating a dynamic learning environment, hands-on activities help you build a deeper understanding of math concepts and instill a love of learning.

Also, to be better at math, you can make the most of practice tests.

• Start by simulating real-life testing conditions, adhering to time constraints, and creating a focused environment
• Use practice tests as diagnostic tools to identify your strengths and weaknesses
• Analyze your incorrect answers
• Highlight priority topics for study

Why Can Math Feel Difficult?

Math can feel difficult because it can often come across as abstract, particularly if you haven’t yet mastered the basics. In order to master math, you must understand foundational topics and build skills, including problem solving, critical thinking, and abstract thinking.

Here are some key reasons math can feel difficult to you:

• It feels abstract: Math is a unique subject because it uses numbers, symbols, and formulas, which can all seem daunting
• Mastery requires foundational knowledge: Before you can move on to complex math topics, you need to build a strong foundation of the basics, as it’s a cumulative subject
• It’s precise: Usually in math, there is a right or wrong answer, whereas in subjects like English, you can get good marks for good ideas. This limited margin for error can make it feel daunting
• It requires a lot of concentration: As you progress in more complex math concepts, you need to stay focused while carrying out multiple steps in one go, and concentration can be difficult to maintain
• It doesn’t feel interesting: Ultimately, if you perceive a topic to be boring, you’ll have a harder time engaging, meaning it also feels more difficult

Signs That You May Need Extra Math Support

The signs that you may need extra math support include poor grades, a lack of interest in the subject, and difficulty understanding basic concepts. 

It’s important to be able to spot these signs in yourself so that you can seek help. Here are extra details about them:

• Poor grades: This is a fairly obvious sign that you need extra support — standardized math tests will assess your current knowledge, and poor test scores show you’re not at your expected level
• Math anxiety or reluctance to engage: If you feel highly anxious about math, you’re less likely to perform well, which can also lead to avoiding the subject
• Frustration in math class or on homework: If you find yourself becoming frustrated easily with the subject, you need more support to be confident in it
• Difficulties with basic concepts: If you can’t get your head around foundational math knowledge, it’ll be harder to progress in the subject, meaning you need additional help

If you want to know whether or not you need extra professional support, you might want to take a diagnostics math test. These tests highlight whether you’re performing at your expected grade level, indicating whether you need additional support.

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Once you know where you need help, a personalized tutor can help you master math.

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Conclusion 

Getting really good at math might seem impossible, but with the tips and tricks we’ve taken you through here, you’ll be able to progress quickly.

Math is an essential skill in everyday life, so it’s great that you’re looking for ways to become better at the subject! Put these tips into practice and watch your knowledge and grades soar.

Looking for more support? It’s time to explore personalized tutoring and book a free lesson to see if it’s right for you.

FAQ

Can A Math Tutor Help Improve Math Skills?

Yes, a math tutor can help improve math skills. A good math tutor will assess your skills and provide a personalized curriculum addressing your areas for improvement. By focusing on those areas, they ensure that you improve your math skills instead of revisiting content that you’re comfortable with.

How To Get Better At Math Fast?

To get better at math fast, you need to practice it frequently and consistently. Schedule daily sessions to go over concepts you’re struggling with, focusing on understanding rather than memorization. You cannot improve overnight, but with consistent practice, parental and tutor support, and using helpful math tricks, you can do it quickly.

How To Get Better At Mental Math?

To get better at mental math, you’ll need to practice rounding, breaking down large numbers, borrowing, and left-to-right addition. These skills are used heavily in mental math and mean you can solve complex sums quickly in your head. Then, of course, you need to carry out mental math practice consistently!

How To Get Better At SAT Math?

To get better at SAT math, you should focus on taking mock SAT tests first. These tests give you an idea of what to expect on your real SAT exam. Then, once you know the subjects likely to come up, you can explore resources focused on those topics. Create a study routine that is consistent, but with plenty of breaks, to ace your SAT. 

For more tips, read our blog on how to get a high SAT score.

How To Get Better At Basic Math?

To get better at basic math, it’s important to set aside time each day to practice math and focus on the basics. This includes:

• Number sense
• Basic operations (addition, subtraction, multiplication, division)
• Simple geometry
• Number bonds
• Tricks like rounding

You can also carry out math drills using resources like worksheets to practice your knowledge of basic math skills.

How Much Math Practice Should Students Do Each Day?

You should practice math for up to two hours each day, depending on your age. Younger students in kindergarten and elementary school should keep sessions to 15–30 minutes so it doesn’t become overwhelming. As you get to middle school, you can bump this up to 60 minutes as your focus and knowledge improve. High-schoolers and college students can study for 1.5–2 hours with breaks for intense learning.