Two Head Start centers in a low-income community in California were randomly assigned to serve either as an experimental or control group for eight weeks. A total of 90 parent/child pairs were involved (n=45E, 45C), with two-thirds eligible for free- or reduced-price lunches. The mean age of the children was 4 years, 5 months. One-third of the students were English language learners, and 14% received special education services. All children learned the same math concepts addressed in the PBS shows: numbers and base ten, measurement and data, and geometry and spatial sense. The control group continued to learn as they would have had they not been in the study, but the experimental group's parents and children were assigned to work with PBS-related online math material and parental support materials at home 30 minutes a day four days a week. Usage logs showed that most parents/preschoolers exceeded this time, spending 173 minutes a week three times a week doing online math games, and 20-40 minutes doing hands-on activities. Parents in the experimental group also attended meetings at the school one hour a week to discuss their experiences and address that week's math theme.
 

Children were pre- and posttested on the standardized, nationally normed Test of Early Mathematics Ability. Adjusted mean differences at posttest showed that the experimental  group scored significantly better than the control group in numerical sense, the prime focus of the intervention. Data analysis relating to parental awareness of and ability to support math learning at home showed that parental awareness of their children's math ability increased over time. Furthermore, parent surveys showed that parents felt guided and supported by the meetings and felt competent to continue to help their children at home.
 

While researchers note that the study procedures would be difficult to replicate on a larger scale as is, an alternate, similar approach training professionals to teach parents to use the PBS Kids resources at home to support math learning is suggested for a future, larger study.

Johns Hopkins University 

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