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Children's numerical competence in kindergarten is highly predictive of their acquisition of mathematics in Grade 1 and Grade 2, suggesting that experiences at home before schooling are important in understanding how numeracy develops. In this study, the mathematical skills of 146 children in Kindergarten, Grade 1, and Grade 2 were correlated with the frequency with which parents reported informal activities that have quantitative components such as board and card games, shopping, or cooking. Effect sizes were consistent with research relating home literacy experiences to children's vocabulary. The present research supports claims about the importance of home experiences in children's acquisition of mathematics.
Keywords: early numeracy, parent involvement, home experiences, preschoolers
Does early exposure to quantitative activities provide a foundation for children's acquisition of mathematics? Recent longitudinal studies show that children's numeracy skills in kindergarten, before they have had much formal instruction, are highly predictive of their performance at the end of Grades 1 and 2 (Aunóla, Leskinen, Lerkkanen, & Nurmi, 2004; Desoete & Grégoire, 2007; Jordan, Kaplan, Locuniak, & Ramineni, 2007). Such research strongly suggests that children's experiences at home or preschool form the foundation for mathematical learning in school. However, few studies have examined the relations between parents' reports of specific home experiences and children's mathematical learning (cf. Blevins-Knabe, Berghout, Musun-Miller, Eddy, & Jones, 2000; Blevins-Knabe & Musun-Miller, 1996). The goal of the present research was to test whether the frequency of various home numeracy experiences, as reported by parents, is related to children's mathematical knowledge.
Decades of research on home literacy experiences and children's acquisition of literacy have resulted in strong recommendations for home practice (reviewed by Scarborough & Dobrich, 1994 and more recently by Fletcher & Reese, 2005). For example, research has shown that children's exposure to shared book reading is related to receptive vocabulary whereas word-focused instruction by parents correlates with the acquisition of decoding skills (Bus, van Ijzendoorn, & Pellegrini, 1995; Evans, Shaw, & Bell, 2000; Sénéchal, 2006; Sénéchal & LeFevre, 2001, 2002; Sénéchal, LeFevre, Thomas, & Daley, 1998). Sénéchal and LeFevre (2002) developed a model implicating the importance of both indirect experiences (i.e., storybook reading) and direct practices (i.e., teaching about word reading) on children's language and literacy development.
In comparison, the field of children's early numeracy and...