Poster #73 - Enhancing Early Numeracy in Young Children through the Home Numeracy Environment

• In Event: 3-106 - Poster Session 11
  In Poster Session: PS 11 Section - Education, Schooling

Integrative Statement

The importance of early numeracy as it relates to parenting and the home environment is an emerging field that has not been extensively studied in the early years prior to formal schooling. The current study examines the impact of parenting and home numeracy environment on children’s mathematical understanding by seeking to answer the following questions:
1. How are parents’ currently supporting children’s early numeracy in the home, and did this change significantly throughout the study?
2. Which mathematical activities do parents prefer to use with their children, and which activities did children prefer?
3. In what ways does parental use of mathematical activities impact children’s mathematical understanding?

Families who participated had children ages 3-5 at the onset of the study and attended either a rural university lab school (n = 13) or a suburban faith-based preschool (n = 14). Of the 27 families at the onset of the study, 23 completed all 15 weeks of intervention. Thirteen boys and eleven girls completed the study, and the average age at the start of the study was M = 4.15 (SD = 0.63). This study employed a single group pretest-posttest design and occurred in three phases. Phase 1 included pre-assessments of the home numeracy environment using the Home Numeracy Questionnaire (Kellmans, Peeters, Segers, & Verhoeven, 2012) and the children's mathematical understanding using the Test of Early Mathematics Ability (TEMA-3; Ginsburg & Baroody, 2003). In Phase 2, parents implemented early numeracy activities with children in the home (see Table 1) and completed researcher-developed weekly surveys.
Phase 3 involved post-assessments of the home numeracy environment and the children's mathematical understanding.

Results indicate that overall parental expectations for their children at the end of Kindergarten significantly increased over the study, and parents increased in their home numeracy activity as well. For parental expectations, Wilcoxon signed-rank test indicates a significant increase in parental expectations in three categories (see Figure 1). Although mean increases exist in four of the five categories of the home numeracy environment, none of these differences are significant on the Wilcoxon signed rank test. Parents and children both preferred activities that involved direct math instruction and movement, and activities rated lowest involved less direct instruction or more difficult concepts. Wilcoxon signed-rank test indicates a marginally significant improvement in percentile rank on the TEMA-3: (W = 1.701, p < .10), which increased from a pretest percentile rank of M = 53.50 (SD = 24.22) to a posttest percentile rank of M = 61.61 (SD = 18.81).

Based on the findings in this study, introducing numerical concepts in the home environment and encouraging parent/child interaction about numeracy positively impacts parental perceptions of early numeracy. Early mathematical interventions have the potential to positively influence children’s mathematical learning. This information will inform the field of early childhood education as well as pave the way for a larger and more diverse study evaluating the impact of parenting and the home environment on early numeracy.

Author

• Kristina Nicole Higgins, Tarleton State University
  Presenting Author