Relations Between Home Math Activities and Parents’ Accuracy on Reports of Preschoolers’ Math Language Knowledge and Numeracy Skills

• In Event: Relations between parent and teacher factors and children’s school readiness skills

Abstract

Early math skills, including numeracy and math language (e.g., “less”, “before”), are important for later academic achievement (Toll & Van Luit, 2014; Watts et al., 2014). The home math environment (HME; the frequency of parent-child math engagement) contributes to preschoolers’ numeracy and math language development (quantitative and spatial; Purpura et al., 2020). Parents’ knowledge of their child’s math abilities is important for how they shape the HME and children’s subsequent math development (Hunt, 1961; Lin et al., 2020; Vygotsky, 1978; Zippert & Ramani, 2017; Zippert & Rittle-Johnson, 2020). However, there is limited research on parents’ knowledge of their child’s early math language and numeracy skills. This study investigates what parents with low-SES know about their children’s quantitative and spatial language and numeracy skills, and examines relations between the accuracy of parents’ knowledge and the HME. Findings have implications for how parental knowledge is important for the HME more broadly (including number-related and spatial activities). We had two main research questions:

1) How accurate are parents’ estimations of their preschoolers’ quantitative language, spatial language, and numeracy skills?
a) Does accuracy differ by math skill type?
b) To what extent do parents tend to overestimate versus underestimate children’s math skills?
2) How does parental accuracy in estimating children’s math skills relate to the HME?
Participants (N = 117) were parents of 3- to 5-year-olds (Mage = 4.27, SD = .63, 49.6% female) enrolled in Head Start. Parent surveys measured beliefs about children’s abilities and the HME (LeFevre et al., 2009), and children were directly assessed on quantitative and spatial language (Purpura & Logan, 2015), numeracy skills (Purpura et al., 2015), and receptive vocabulary (Weintraub et al., 2013).
For research question 1, parental accuracy and underestimation did not significantly differ by math skill type, controlling for receptive vocabulary (see Table 1 for descriptives). There were differences in parental overestimation, such that parents tended to overestimate their child’s quantitative language more than they overestimated children’s numeracy skills, t(89) = 4.07, p < 0.01, and overestimated children’s spatial language more than they overestimated children’s numeracy skills, t(91) = 2.73, p = 0.008. Parents tended to underestimate rather than overestimate children’s spatial language skills; t(101) = -2.29, p = 0.02.

For research question 2, parental accuracy in estimating children’s math skills was not related to the HME (Table 1). However, higher rates of overestimation of quantitative language and underestimation of spatial language were related to more frequent and less frequent home numeracy activities, respectively (Table 2). Higher rates of underestimation of quantitative language and numeracy skills were associated with less spatial activity engagement (Table 2).

Parents with low-SES were somewhat accurate in estimating children’s math skills. Findings build on previous work by demonstrating that parents’ estimates of children’s math language are important for HME engagement. Ultimately, parents’ inaccuracies about children’s skills related to the frequency in which they engage their children in math-related activities, suggesting that parents may benefit from guidance in understanding the development of specific skills to better support children’s math learning.

Authors

• Yemimah King, Purdue University, West Lafayette
  Presenting Author

• Erica L. Zippert, Purdue University, West Lafayette
  Non-Presenting Author

• Joyce Lin, California State University - Fullerton
  Non-Presenting Author

• David James Purpura, Purdue University, West Lafayette
  Non-Presenting Author