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One thing that worked well for my wife was a series of games from Nintendo called Fire Emblem. This isn't a series of educational games: it's actually turn-bas

One thing that worked well for my wife was a series of games from Nintendo called Fire Emblem. This isn't a series of educational games: it's actually turn-based strategy. But the mechanics are all derived from very simple arithmetic, and although they don't give you the actual formulas, they give you, up front, every single number that goes into them formulas. Use a FAQ to get the small number of formulas involved, and the randomness all but vanishes: for any given unit on the field, you can always tell exactly which other units can attack it, how many times those units can try to attack, how much damage they'll do if they hit (and the exact odds of them hitting), how much damage you will do in response if your counterattack hits, and so on. The game will do this for you, but only for units that are directly in range at any given moment. With the numbers, you can calculate for any unit on the field, and that lets you start thinking multiple moves ahead. The end result is that if you work out the math in your head, you can Neo your way through the games, and this is exactly what my wife did. I have never been the math-head in the family, but before she started this, I was still handier with numbers than she was: now it's the other way around. I should look into this myself.

011011100 13y ago
Some people are very good at chess. Similar idea. Are these people also good at math? "One thing that worked well for my wife was a series of games from Nintendo called Fire Emblem." So are you trying to make a scientific claim? This is starting to seem like an anecdote supporting brain training games.
- saraid216 13y ago
  No, that isn't remotely his claim. What happened with his wife was that she became motivated to learn number crunching. The game provided or increased a motivation to become comfortable working with numbers. That's all that happened. Brain training has nothing to do with learning math. It just uses arithmetic the same way cross training uses a mountain trail.
- Kiro 13y ago
  What are you even arguing about?
  - 011011100 13y ago
    There are a lot of feel good nonsense posts in this thread. The parent gave no indication he was referring to motivation. It sounded like he was saying his wife suddenly became better at whatever he considers math to be by just playing a video game. That's basically claiming that brain training works. I may have a slightly different definition of "brain training", but it doesn't really matter because it's just as unscientific. There is no evidence to support the idea that playing video games somehow makes you better at "math" (where "math" is referring to those activities that require deductive thought and understanding of mathematical structures, not number crunching).
    - Millennium 13y ago
      Not even so much "brain training works" as "practice makes perfect". It was a fun way to practice, and I thought it might be helpful for other people looking for a way to brush up on the basics.
      - 011011100 13y ago
        She's practicing number crunching and maybe some other cognitive tasks that probably can't be related to mathematical thought, unless you squint really hard. I can identify at least one cognitive task: holding configurations in your head (I have played Fire Emblem). From my experience, I would say that this has nothing to do with the type of thought that goes into mathematics. Like I said in my first post: good chess players can do this well. Does that mean good chess players are also good at some part of math? And, you know, one would have to show that there is some "mathematical thought" that can be trained to begin with. I'm not entirely sure there is. I don't disagree that "practice makes perfect". I disagree with the statement "practice in fire emblem makes perfect in math (not number crunching)". People want to share stories. I get it. But if we're not being rigorous about it, then we're just fooling ourselves. And then the conversation devolves into a circlejerk where everyone thinks they're brilliant.
melindajb 13y ago
Great suggestion! Just for fun and a share: my parents didn't allow me to have a video game system as a kid, but they did allow me to have computer games for my Commodore 64.(!) My personal favorite was "Algebra Dragon" in which you slayed dragons by solving equations.To this day I'm convinced it helped my mindset towards math.

011011100 13y ago

Some people are very good at chess. Similar idea. Are these people also good at math? "One thing that worked well for my wife was a series of games from Nintendo called Fire Emblem." So are you trying to make a scientific claim? This is starting to seem like an anecdote supporting brain training games.

saraid216 13y ago
No, that isn't remotely his claim. What happened with his wife was that she became motivated to learn number crunching. The game provided or increased a motivation to become comfortable working with numbers. That's all that happened. Brain training has nothing to do with learning math. It just uses arithmetic the same way cross training uses a mountain trail.
Kiro 13y ago
What are you even arguing about?
- 011011100 13y ago
  There are a lot of feel good nonsense posts in this thread. The parent gave no indication he was referring to motivation. It sounded like he was saying his wife suddenly became better at whatever he considers math to be by just playing a video game. That's basically claiming that brain training works. I may have a slightly different definition of "brain training", but it doesn't really matter because it's just as unscientific. There is no evidence to support the idea that playing video games somehow makes you better at "math" (where "math" is referring to those activities that require deductive thought and understanding of mathematical structures, not number crunching).
  - Millennium 13y ago
    Not even so much "brain training works" as "practice makes perfect". It was a fun way to practice, and I thought it might be helpful for other people looking for a way to brush up on the basics.
    - 011011100 13y ago
      She's practicing number crunching and maybe some other cognitive tasks that probably can't be related to mathematical thought, unless you squint really hard. I can identify at least one cognitive task: holding configurations in your head (I have played Fire Emblem). From my experience, I would say that this has nothing to do with the type of thought that goes into mathematics. Like I said in my first post: good chess players can do this well. Does that mean good chess players are also good at some part of math? And, you know, one would have to show that there is some "mathematical thought" that can be trained to begin with. I'm not entirely sure there is. I don't disagree that "practice makes perfect". I disagree with the statement "practice in fire emblem makes perfect in math (not number crunching)". People want to share stories. I get it. But if we're not being rigorous about it, then we're just fooling ourselves. And then the conversation devolves into a circlejerk where everyone thinks they're brilliant.

melindajb 13y ago

Great suggestion! Just for fun and a share: my parents didn't allow me to have a video game system as a kid, but they did allow me to have computer games for my Commodore 64.(!) My personal favorite was "Algebra Dragon" in which you slayed dragons by solving equations.To this day I'm convinced it helped my mindset towards math.