A research from Purdue University has shown that preschool children who do math activities at home with mom or dad not only benefit from improvement in math skills but in literacy skills as well. “Exposure to basic numbers and math concepts at home were predictive, even more so than storybook reading or other literacy-rich interactions, of improving preschool children’s general vocabulary,” said Amy Napoli, a doctoral student in the Department of Human Development and Family Studies who led the study.
According to David Purpura, an assistant professor in the Department of Human Development and Family Studies at Purdue University and senior author of this research, “It’s never too early to talk about numbers and quantities. One of the first words young children learn is “more.” There are many ways for parents to encourage math learning at home, like counting, connecting numbers to quantities, and comparing values such as “more and less” or “smaller and bigger.” This kind of exercises helps make young children aware of the importance of numbers. For example, it’s wiser to tell them that they’ll get “two cookies” and “two apricots” (which makes 4 objects) for their snack, rather than just telling them they’ll get “cookies and apricots.”
Picture: Arcanys Early Learning Foundation
