Early Numeracy
Early language skills even benefit other areas of thinking and education - such as the development of numerical and mathematical skills!
Below is a detailed description of what early numeracy is and how your child's language skills positively impact his/her mathematical skills.
What is Early Numeracy?
Early numeracy represents a set of mathematical skills that start to develop during the pre-kindergarten years, and this continues through adulthood. The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics specifies that these set of skills comprise:
a) Number and operations, such as one-to-one correspondence
b) Operational problem solving
c) Geometry, such as understanding shapes, directions, locations and relations between them
d) Measurement, such as quantity comparison and defining how much of something occurs
e) Patterns and algebra, such as relations between units
f) Data analysis and classification such as sorting and using information to answer questions
How Emergent Literacy Benefits Early Numeracy
Emergent literacy in terms of vocabulary and print knowledge are predictors of early numeracy knowledge and development - the skills listed above. These language skills correlate with children’s development of a collection of important thinking and reasoning skills. These skills include problem solving, reasoning, communication, connections and representation.
Home Literacy and Numeracy Models
The Home Literacy Model predicts that informal experiences in literacy, including storybook telling, predict vocabulary knowledge while formal experiences in literacy, including direct teaching of reading skills, predict alphabet and word reading knowledge.
This model can be extended to numeracy. When a home environment encourages both informal and formal numeracy skills, math knowledge is improved. Positive parental attitudes towards literacy and numeracy also increased their educational practices at home. Both practices improved their children's performance in school.
What Can You Do to Encourage Early Numeracy?
a) Talk and read to your children.
b) Foster a rich play environment with games that include informal numeracy, such as board games with counting. This encourages the development of literacy and mathematical skills.
c) Have in-depth discussions about mathematical relationships in the world around your children.