As Math Experience Equals ‘0’ in Some Pre-K Classrooms, Committee Urges More
As Early Ed Watch has noted, it’s about time we started paying as much attention to young children’s math skills as we do their reading. America’s kids lag behind most developed nations in their math achievement, and for the first time since 1990, the 2009 NAEP Nation’s Report Card showed no progress on the national average math score among 4th graders.
The importance of teaching math in preschool and elementary school is often overlooked. Last Wednesday on Capitol Hill, however, the issue took center stage as experts from the Committee on Early Childhood Mathematics, a research committee formed by The National Academies, came together to speak about their research and policy recommendations for improving math skills among young children.
The briefing followed up on a report on math released late last year by the Institute of Education Sciences. One of the authors of the report, Heidi Schweingruber, helped explain why we need better research, better curriculum, and a better teaching workforce to teach math to young children. When given the opportunity, Schweingruber and her colleagues explained, young children can be very competent in mathematics. However, according to a study cited by the Committee on Early Childhood Mathematics, 60 percent of 3-year-olds receive no math instruction at all.
Representatives from the Committee noted that young children from families with low-socioeconomic backgrounds are especially vulnerable and may receive less informal math training from parents at home. And research released last month from the University of Chicago shows that math instruction may be troubled in different, unexpected ways as well: The Chicago researchers found that female elementary school teachers who are anxious about math may actually transfer those negative feelings to the girls they teach—a troubling notion when you consider that, according to the Chicago Tribune, more than 90 percent of elementary school teachers in the U.S. are women.
The Committee had several recommendations on how to improve math curriculum and instruction, including:
<ul style="margin-top: 0in;" type="disc"><li>Increasing the amount of coursework, particularly in learning numbers and geometry, that children experience during preschool.</li><li>Providing professional development to teachers to help them understand math itself, the teaching-learning paths that children take when learning math, and how to teach with an awareness of those learning paths.</li><li>Providing more informal resources to parents so they can better emphasize mathematical concepts (i.e., “Did you eat <i>half </i>your pizza?” “Do you have <i>both </i>of your socks?”) at home. With only 40 percent of kids ages 3 and 4 in formal preschool or day care, it is crucial for parents to introduce math within the home. (See a recent WashingtonPost.com <a href="http://earlyed.newamerica.net/publications/articles/2009/if_bedtime_is_book_time_lets_make_morning_time_for_math_13825">article</a> by <i>Early Ed Watch’s </i>Lisa Guernsey for ideas on how parents can turn morning time into math time.)</li></ul> <div>The panelists who spoke at the event, which also included Douglas Clements, professor at the Department of Learning and Instruction at the State University of New York - Buffalo, and Henry Kepner, president of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, noted that the state of research and policy regarding early math learning is not nearly as advanced as early literacy. They were hopeful, however, that an increased focus on early math skills can help America’s kids with learning math later on in school.</div>
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