Financial Literacy for Middle School: Some Ideas about Best Methods

If you have an interest in presenting lessons in financial literacy for middle school, there are some recommendations for making the instruction most successful. The information on this page can be helpful to get people started in the right direction toward teaching strong financial literacy for kids.

How to Adapt Financial Literacy for Middle School Students

Teaching financial literacy to middle school ages should be adapted to fit their unique needs and abilities. This time in their lives represents a teachable moment for shaping their money management skills in a positive way that can have powerful effect on their futures.

Children come into this world as members of a given family with a singular financial situation. That is, every family’s financial makeup is different, and that situation has major impact on the habits the children develop. The parents’ socio-economic status, the spending and saving behaviors they demonstrate, and how money affects their emotions – all these make a difference in their kids’ future finances.

While children grow up, they are exposed to the full gamut of factors that will influence their financial behaviors. Marketing is a huge piece of that puzzle. For example, the American Psychological Association recently linked food industry advertising targeted toward children with increased childhood obesity. https://www.apa.org

Further, middle school financial literacy programs should consider the financial sentiments that parents model and children pick up. Everyone has an individualized set of feelings and attitudes about money. As kids are exposed to information regarding how others feel toward money, they start developing their own emotions about the topic. And this emotional base has impact on future money management for kids.

The essence of financial literacy for middle school is to incorporate financial lessons into the curriculum. Yet few schools are teaching this important subject, and parents frequently lack the knowledge and time to teach kids themselves. Instruction that includes financial behaviors, psychological factors, and practical systems is much-needed in today’s school systems.

Configurations of Financial Literacy for Middle School Systems

Question for Middle School Financial Literacy Teachers: What is their Learning Level?

It’s important to comprehend the cognitive stage of the student audience when you start teaching personal finance lessons for middle school kids. Middle schoolers generally are aged 11 to 14. That means the younger ones may fall at the concrete operational phase in Piaget’s cognitive acquisition theory, which is a good time to offer them logical problems about concrete events. For example, you might ask them to solve relational numerical calculations of more versus less, or consumption versus production. They should be able to grasp volume and mass, and comparisons between currency values. The middle school financial literacy lessons for the older students must take into consideration that they’re at the formal operational level. Thus they may benefit from abstract problems they can solve as a group. Brainstorming solutions to financial difficulties encountered by imaginary characters may be a valuable lesson and practical, enjoyable process for these students. Kids at this age also appreciate technology, and may enjoy online games and apps for learning.

Proficiency of Financial Literacy for Middle School Options

Right now, more than ever before, is a great time to give our children the advantage that a practical money management education can bring. The knowledge kids acquire when we teach them about money can make a long-lasting difference in their lives. A middle school financial literacy program sets the stage for personal finance lessons in high school, college, and beyond.

Kids learn the majority of their money skills from their parents. But if we look at some of the alarming statistics about growing debt loads and financial hardships in this country, it becomes clear that most parents are failing to teach their children these vital skills. If they did receive training in financial literacy, high school aged kids would have a lot of advantages once they moved out on their own. But unfortunately, money skills are not taught at school.

Indeed, in a recent test of financial literacy, high school students were found to score rather badly. The National Financial Educators Council had 1,309 kids aged 15 through 18 take a brief personal finance exam. The average score was 58, and only one-third of the kids were able to answer 70% or more of the questions correctly. These results clearly demonstrate how much we need more successful programs that promote financial literacy for kids.

Teaching children about money is essential if we are going to keep America strong. They need basic knowledge about spending and saving, investing in stocks and real estate, managing credit, and even how to become an entrepreneur. The world is changing quickly and dramatically. By the time our kids reach retirement age, they probably will have no Social Security benefits on which to draw. Youth financial literacy will set the stage for helping kids move toward positive futures where they are able to seize opportunities as they arise and achieve the lifestyles they desire.