Early Math Skills as Key to Later Success

From the Marshall Memo #430

In this Education Week article, Deborah Stipek (Stanford University), Ann Schoenfeld (University of California/Berkeley), and Deanna Gomby (Heising-Simons Foundation) say that mastery of math skills by the time a student enters kindergarten (for example, knowing what numbers mean and ordinality) has a higher correlation with later academic success than early reading skills. “The time is right for increasing our attention to early math,” they say. “The K-12 common-core standards offer a clear and nearly universal target for math skills U.S. children will need to master in the beginning elementary grades.” 

Stipek, Schoenfeld, and Gomby advocate developing a nationwide set of pre-kindergarten standards, followed up with first-rate curriculum materials and teacher training. The trick is making the standards, materials, and methods developmentally appropriate. “The most commonly encountered activities in preschool are among the least effective for teaching children math,” they say. “Learning to count by rote teaches children number words and their 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. Knowing that ‘four’ follows ‘three’ is of minimal value if a child doesn’t know what ‘four’ means… Typical assessments of young children’s math understanding include a very limited number of math concepts, and children can often reach the right answer without genuine understanding.”

“The goal of math instruction is to help children develop, discuss, and use efficient, accurate, and generalizable methods to solve mathematical problems,” conclude Stipek, Schoenfeld, and Gomby. “To achieve this goal, young children need problems to solve and latitude to construct their own strategies.” The best strategy is to embed math in play – for example, playing Chutes and Ladders and tic-tac-toe teach important math content while also developing social skills (taking turns, cooperation), language skills, and cognitive self-regulation. 

“Math Matters, Even for Little Kids” by Deborah Stipek, Ann Schoenfeld, and Deanna Gomby in Education Week, Mar. 28, 2012 (Vol. 31, #26, p. 27, 29), no e-link available