Building an effective preschool/early years math program
As your school reviews and retools its math program to meet current requirements, you as a parent/caregiver/teacher may want to ensure your program is aligned with current best practices. These include:- Making maths real by teaching it in the context of preschoolers' everyday lives--at school, at home, and in the community. Math doesn't exist only on paper, a chalkboard, or a whiteboard; preschoolers learn math best by doing hands-on projects and activities and being reminded how the math they're learning "doing" is part of their everyday lives.
- Teaching the many aspects of math: "number sense," geometry (patterns and shapes), measurement, the language of math, and spatial relations.
- Teaching math across the curriculum rather than as an isolated subject. Blend math concepts into language arts, music, art, and science projects.
- Observing, documenting and sharing progress about individual students’ math competency and challenges with their parents.
- Individualizing math instruction to students’ needs, building on what they already know.
- Find out if the math program and materials you use are based on peer-reviewed research that has proven to be effective.
The influence of culture, community, and socio-economic status
Just as a child’s family and neighborhood may influence the development of reading awareness and skills, these same factors may affect progress in learning math. Research has revealed cultural differences in when — and how — children are exposed to early math concepts at home.Children who live in poverty are often at risk for poor math achievement (and for low academic achievement in general). These children may enter preschool suffering from an absence of intellectual stimulation at home, especially if their parents didn’t receive the benefit of a full education. Look for ways to provide rich math experiences for children and to engage their parents as partners by sharing with them the math concepts your child is learning at school and encouraging them to reinforce that learning at home.
