Parental Support of Preschoolers' Number, Pattern, and Spatial Skills Predicts Concurrent and Later Math Knowledge

• In Event: Parental Support of Math Readiness Skills: How to Promote and Optimize It

Abstract

Math research typically focuses on numeracy, but recent evidence suggests spatial and patterning skills are also important math skills. Parents can contribute to early numeracy and spatial development through home-based number and spatial activities (Levine et al., 2010; Pruden et al., 2011). However, little is known about how frequently parents engage preschoolers in pattern activities, how parents’ beliefs relate to their support of math skills, nor how this support predicts early and later math knowledge. Our study’s main questions included:

1. How frequently do parents report engaging their preschoolers in patterning activities versus number and spatial activities, and are they related?
2. How does engagement in pattern, number, and spatial activities relate to parents’ math-related beliefs?
3. How does engagement in pattern, number, and spatial activities at home relate to preschoolers’ math knowledge at the beginning and end of the pre-kindergarten school year?

Parents (n=60, 84% mothers, 52% White, 39% Black) and their preschoolers (M(age)=4 years 6 months, 52% girls) were recruited from 6 preschools. Parents were surveyed in the Fall about their beliefs about their own and their children’s abilities/interests in number, pattern, and spatial activities on 7-point scales (e.g., 1 = not good at all to 7 = very good). They additionally reported the frequency of specific number, pattern, and spatial activities at home on 6-point scales (0 = never to 5 = daily), with 7 to 9 activities per topic (Table 3). Finally, children’s math knowledge was assessed in the Fall and Spring of the school year using the Research-Based Early Mathematics Assessment (Weiland et al., 2012).

Parents reported engaging children in number activities weekly (M=3.36, SD=.76), and in spatial (M=2.48, SD=.73) and patterning activities monthly (M=2.29, SD=1). Paired-samples t-tests showed that parents engaged their children more frequently in number activities than spatial t(60)=11.63, p<.001 and pattern t(60)=9.85, p<.001 activities, but similarly in spatial and pattern activities, p>.07. Parents who engaged children more in one type of math activity tended to also engage children more in the other types (r’s=.57-.68, p’s<.001).

Parents who believed their children to be more interested and able to participate in pattern, number, and spatial activities engaged children in these activities more frequently at home, r(number)(60)=.41, p<.01, r(spatial)(60)=.27, p<.05, r(pattern)(60)=.31, p<.02. Further, parents who believed they were better at math and spatial tasks engaged children in more spatial activities r(60)=.37, p<.01.

Per question three, correlations controlling for child age revealed that parents who more frequently engaged their children at home in number and pattern activities had children with math scores in the Fall, r(number)(59)=.28, p<.03, r(pattern)(59)= .34, p<.01, r(spatial)(59)=.28, p<.03. Children whose parents engaged them more frequently in spatial activities had higher math scores by the end of preschool, r(spatial)(59) =.30, p<.02. These findings held in regression analyses controlling for child age (Table 4).

Parents engage children in a range of math activities, focusing most on number skill building, and their beliefs are important in understanding their efforts. Further, parental support of these skills are important in supporting children's developing math readiness skills.

Authors

• Erica Leigh Zippert, Vanderbilt University

• Bethany Rittle-Johnson, Vanderbilt University