The text surrounding the problems connects the material and offers students a chance to place the information in a framework they can understand. Like the shelves on a book shelf, they give the student a way to organize the material for greater understanding and greater retrieval. But reading math is difficult. Encourage your children to look to the text for explanations of what they don't understand. When we accept the struggle as a good and normal part of learning math, we can change the way we talk about it, the way we feel about it, and the way we learn it.
Parents are understandably concerned about their children's math performance.
But this concern need not be transmitted through tension, anxiety, or frustration. Success will follow.