Did you know research shows that learning math skills early in life can be a better predictor of academic success than early reading skills, yet most preschools and pre-kindergarten programs don’t teach them?
That’s right. Nearly all preschools and pre-K programs throughout the country teach letters and phonics but spend less than one minute per day teaching math skills. Not even one minute.
Teachers, educators and parents have embraced the importance of teaching literacy early and pushing off math until later. And while teaching kids to count up to 10, 20 or 50 before Kindergarten is helpful, it doesn’t build any kind of foundation for elementary school math. And, as Stanford professor Deborah Stipek explained, “learning to count by rote teaches children number words and order, but it does not teach them number sense any more than singing the letters L-M-N-O-P in the alphabet song teaches phonemic awareness.”
Early math learning practices and exercises
So, what can we/you do to help build math skills at an early age? One way to build on the innate math abilities kids have is to focus on helping them count in contexts that they understand. To practice counting on so if they have two blocks, you can add another and say “three,” add another and say “four.” This helps them understand that the number correlates with increasing blocks.
Also, toddlers are natural sorters and by age 2 they can make comparisons such as same, more and different, so you can organize objects into different “sets” or groups and ask them to sort them by color, size, shape, etc. Then they can count how many are in each group.
Teaching patterns also helps kids learn to make predictions, use reasoning skills and make logical connections. Growing patterns and relationship patterns are actually a foundation for understanding multiplication later on too.
An easy way to teach patterns is with building blocks. Exposing kids to geometrical shapes like circles, squares, triangles and more will help them build visual literacy. And did you know that a child who enjoys playing and building LEGOs during preschool years is correlated with higher math achievement in high school?
Math builds reasoning, leads to comprehension, and is the language of logic. If you notice your child begins struggling with math at an early age or during elementary school, don’t wait to get help of wait for them to “catch up.”
Let our team of math tutors help them today!
And don’t forget, for all of our Next Generation Coders, in March we are offering a Next Gen Coders program each Saturday from 1-2pm along with a kid’s Robotics class from 2-3pm.
These are $40/month for current students and $110/month for non-students.
(832) 569-5073
