Article: Preschoolers' Counting Abilities Relate to Future Math Performance

Early Learning Early Learning General Discussions
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http://scienceblog.com/57589/preschoolers-counting-abilities-relate-to-future-math-performance/

From the article:

Along with reciting the days of the week and the alphabet, adults often practice reciting numbers with young children. Now, new research from the University of Missouri suggests reciting numbers is not enough to prepare children for math success in elementary school. The research indicates that counting, which requires assigning numerical values to objects in chronological order, is more important for helping preschoolers acquire math skills.

“Reciting means saying the numbers from memory in chronological order, whereas counting involves understanding that each item in the set is counted once and that the last number stated is the amount for the entire set,” said Louis Manfra, an assistant professor in MU’s Department of Human Development and Family Studies. “When children are just reciting, they’re basically repeating what seems like a memorized sentence. When they’re counting, they’re performing a more cognitive activity in which they’re associating a one-to-one correspondence with the object and the number to represent a quantity.”

Manfra analyzed data from more than 3,000 children from low-income households in order to determine if the children’s reciting and counting abilities in preschool affected their first-grade math scores. He found that students who could recite and count to 20 in preschool had the highest math scores in first grade; however, less than 10 percent of the children in the study could count and recite to 20.

“Counting gives children stronger foundations when they start school,” Manfra said. “The skills children have when they start kindergarten affect their trajectories through early elementary school; therefore, it’s important that children start with as many skills as possible.”

Previous research has shown that, in low-income families, parents often think children’s educations are the responsibility of teachers, while teachers expect parents to teach some essential skills at home, Manfra said.

“These low-income children aren’t learning math skills anywhere because parents think the children are learning them at school, and teachers think they’re learning them at home,” Manfra said. “This is a problem because it gives parents and teachers the idea that it’s not their responsibility to educate the children, when it’s everyone’s responsibility. This is problematic because, when the children enter kindergarten and are at lower math levels, they don’t have the foundational skills needed to set them on paths for future success.”

Parents and teachers should integrate counting into all aspects of children’s daily activities so they can master the skill, Manfra said.

“You can learn anything anywhere, and this is very true for counting,” Manfra said. “When adults read books with children, they can count the ducks on the page. They might count the leaves that fall to the ground outside or the number of carrots at lunchtime.”

The Department of Human Development and Family Studies is part of the MU College of Human Environmental Sciences. The study, “Associations between Counting Ability in Preschool and Mathematic Performance in First Grade among a Sample of Ethnically Diverse, Low-Income Children,” will be published in an upcoming issue of the Journal of Research in Childhood Education.

Good thing I’m already doing counting and not rote recitation of numbers… thank you LM for making this particularly easy! :biggrin:

But this, “parents often think children’s educations are the responsibility of teachers” is really sad. I think this attitude is the demise of society in some respects. How can you abdicate the number one priority of having a child? Wow, and I know it’s true… that’s the sad part.

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PokerDad,

The article echoes some of the concepts in the book ‘Marshmallow Math: Early Math for Young Children’. Marshmallow Math is good step up from Little Math, so once you’re done with LM, you may want to get the Marshmallow Math book. In Marshmallow Math, the author strongly emphasize counting with an understanding of quantity, not recitation counting. And he recommends counting with everything: pennies, oranges, apples, fingers, etc. The book gave me ideas I never thought of. It’s a good book.

Here is the webpage where you can check out sample chapters, and preview the table of contents, etc: http://marshmallowmath.com/

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The first chapter of Marshmallow Math is titled ``Counting To Ten’’. I’ve typed out the entire chapter below. It says:

[size=12pt]``Counting is fundamental to a child’s understanding of numbers. It is probably never too early to start counting with your child. Count fingers, toes, toys, books, apples, family members, pets, etc. As ten is a significant number in our ``base ten’’ number system, ten is again an appropriate point at which to stop counting and start again.

Some children learn to recite the number names one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten’’ like a poem, without an understanding of the concept of number or quantity. A young child who rhymes off one, two, three, four’’ all the way up to ten like a pro may not have any idea what four’’ means or what seven’’ means. That is why it is a good idea to count out objects of some sort rather than just count aloud.

Similarly, avoid placing early emphasis on reading and writing numbers. At this point in time, it is not particularly important. What is more important is that your child understands what eight of something means, rather than whether or not they can recognise or print the symbol for the numeral `8’’. Introducing the reading and writing of the numbers too early may confuse the child about the meaning of numbers. This should be different from learning the alphabet where symbol recognition should be encouraged from the start. With the alphabet, unlike numbers, the primary concept is recognising the letter symbols and knowing the sounds that they represent. See Chapter 28 for a discussion about when and how to introduce the reading and writing of numbers.

Start off by giving your child a small number of objects to count, perhaps only three or four. Please remember that noodles and other small objects may not be appropriate for very young children because of a choking hazard. Use a ``choke tube’’ to ensure that any small counting objects are safe for your child. A choke tube may be purchased at any good children’s store and is an excellent device to own if you have a toddler in the house. Try counting apples and oranges or teddy bears.

Once your child is able to count a small number of objects with confidence, slowly provide him or her with a larger number of objects to count. Always be prepared to assist your child in counting.

Even after your child can count all the way to ten, it is a good idea to occasionally count to a smaller number. Put out various numbers of objects to be counted and change the number randomly. This will help to ensure that your child really grasps the concept of quantity and is not just reciting the words.

Encourage your child to do different things with the objects that he or she is counting. A few ideas are to put them in a row, put them in a dish, make a new pile, or hide them. This will help to sustain your child’s interest.

Children love to count and will have fun doing so over and over. Remember that repetition is good and will reinforce your child’s understanding of numbers and establish a foundation for future math skills. It is repletion that will stimulate your child’s brain to grow and reinforce the neural pathways that process mathematical concepts.

Depending on the age of your child, it may be months or years before he or she moves beyond this stage in their competency with numbers. Learning to count, like learning to talk, is an enormously difficult thing to do. It is far more difficult than most of the things that adults are called upon to learn, so don’t be in too big of a hurry to move on.’’

QUOTE ENDS.

Hope that helps. That’s just the first chapter that deals with ``counting to 10’’. There are other chapters on teaching one-to-one correspondence, counting to 20, etc.

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It’s so great to read some research regarding the long-term benefits of EL - it definitely provides encouragement to keep going. Karma for posting it. Imagine if there were some studies published on the children on this forum!

I don’t think parents are abdicating responsibility per se - I feel they are just going along with what they feel is best for their children. People have the idea that teachers are the best, most qualified people to teach their kids and often feel that they will be doing their kids a disservice to interfere with their schooling. How many times do we hear “he/she’ll be bored in school” or “they teach maths differently now so don’t confuse them” etc.

I was at a science fair today & I was struck and impressed by all the parents who had taken the time to take their children there. They were all enthusiastically encouraging their children to participate and delighting in their interest. And I also felt sad that EL is still so taboo and pretty socially unacceptable (NONE of my friends know I am doing this with my kids). When you think of all the parents in the world who simply want the best for their children - if EL was more accepted there would be no limits!

With regard to LM - at times, I have felt like I’m banging my head off a brick wall trying to interest my toddler in LM. We took a break for a while & since we returned to it, I simply play the lesson (unless she objects) & I don’t insist she watch it, like I had been trying to do. I have wondered if I was wasting time that could be better used working on something else but I went with it anyway. Well, I think it has had an positive impact on her maths sense as the very first day we tried addition & subtraction, she was able to correctly complete problems up to five (using linking cubes as manipulatives). I should say that we have also been trying to incorporate maths into our day as much as possible ala Marshmallow Maths so that she has maths all around her, but I’m chosing to believe that we were not wasting our time with LM! We started Saxon K last week and she is now pretty obsessed with maths. It probably helps that I’m using it as a reward, e.g. “If you’re really good & help to tidy your toys, then we might have time to do Saxon maths” to which she generally replies “I’m really good, can we do maths please please please?” Her current favourite activity is to act out the Math Start book ‘Seaweed Soup’.

BTW I am also really enjoying Kitchen Table Math which was recommended on another maths thread a few months ago.

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A couple of things-

For the most part I think it’s a foreign concept to most because people in general are lazy, but I was shocked when I looked into enrolling DD at a so called “Montessori” school (I used the term loosely) when she turned 2.5. I mentioned that I worked with her at home a certain amount and the Director specifically asked me not to teach her anything at home! :blink: The reasoning was that they wanted to teach things "their"way without interference. DH and I agreed that was pretty much nuts since she had already progressed so far, was ready, etc etc, clearly we were doing something right! Soooo…I think 1) Most parents are totally lazy 2) Others fall into this thinking it’s somehow best left to the “professionals” for fear as a parent they’ll screw it up, won’t know how to teach, they’ll confuse their child, or the kid will be bored in school.

In response to the LM question, I will start a new topic as not to derail this thread entirely. My kids went through a phase when they didn’t care for it as much. What we did was take a break for a bit and then reintroduce it with some different strategies. http://forum.brillkids.com/little-math/using-little-math-with-older-toddlers-and-preschoolers/msg92145/#msg92145

Oh, and the article is good news for us EL parents of course because our kids are so on track! Thanks for sharing. :slight_smile: