Embedding Tips in Family Cookbooks to Improve Parent Number Talk and Young Children’s Numerical Skills

• In Event: 1-189 - Innovative Approaches at Home and School to Improve Children’s Early Math Skills

Integrative Statement

Parent engagement in early math learning (e.g., number talk) is a robust predictor of young children’s math achievement, and meal times appear to provide rich opportunities for these interactions (e.g., Casey et al., 2016; Levine et al., 2010; Leyva et al., 2018). Indeed, meal times offer opportunities for parents to discuss a range of early math concepts with young children, including numbers, counting, measurement, simple arithmetic, and shapes (e.g., Susperreguy & Davis-Kean, 2016). Many parents, however, miss these opportunities if not offered guidance (e.g., Vandermass et al., 2012). In the current study, we developed and experimentally tested cookbooks with tips for parents on how to talk about number learning with their children. Cookbooks given to families in the treatment group targeted five critical preschool numerical skills: (1) one-to-one correspondence, (2) subitizing, (3) labeling set sizes, (4) set size comparisons, and (5) simple addition/subtraction problems. And, as a comparison, families in a control group were given “active control” cookbooks that provided general tips for high-quality engagement in children’s learning (e.g., how to ask questions and encourage children to experiment).

Our sample included 30 families of three- to five-year-old children who attended preschool centers serving predominantly low-income children of color. Families were randomly assigned to treatment and control groups, stratified by school, child age, and gender. Across the six-month study, families were asked to complete six audio recordings of cooking sessions with their children. Audio recordings were coded for quantity and quality of number talk. Child assessments included pre-testing on child math, reading, and executive functioning skills. Post-testing of child numerical skills (REMA Counting Learing Trajectory, Clements et al., 2008) was completed at both two and six months after receiving the cookbooks.

We hypothesized positive treatment effects on parent number talk and child numerical skills at six months. Although we made no predictions about the two-month learning outcomes (most parents had completed only 2 cooking sessions by this post-testing), we included these assessments given little evidence on the dosage of parent engagement required to realize child math learning outcomes. Thus far, parent talk data from the first cooking session as well as data from child pre-testing and the two-month post-testing has been analyzed. Importantly, although children in the treatment and control conditions did not differ on demographics or pre-test skills, parents who received cookbooks with number talk tips displayed significantly higher levels of number talk compared with parents in the control condition, at least for the first cooking session, particularly in domains targeted by the cookbook tips (see Figures 1 and 2). However, there were no differences in child numerical skills on the two-month post-test assessment of numerical skills. As a follow-up to these initial analyses, parent talk during the latter cooking sessions and the six-month post-test of numerical skills will be also be presented at the conference. Implications for developmental science and applications to encouraging parent engagement in children’s math learning will be discussed.

Authors

• Eric Dearing, Boston College
  Presenting Author

• Ariadne Nelson, Boston College
  Non-Presenting Author

• Lindsay Clements, Boston College
  Non-Presenting Author