Building Math Skills in the PK-3 Years: Let's Count the Ways

Washington Post reporter Michael Alison Chandler takes a look at math instruction in the early years, as part of a longer Post series on key issues in math instruction. When it comes to early education, policymakers and practitioners often tend to focus on language and literacy, since abundant evidence shows that it's very important for children to develop a strong foundation in language and literacy by third grade. But building foundational math skills in the early years is also important, and the too-often-overlooked subject is getting much needed attention now in the wake of a recent National Math Panel report that emphasized PK-3 math instruction. When it comes to improving children's PK-3 math development, policymakers need to think about several issues, including pre-k access, math focus in early education programs, teacher training, curriculum, and aligning math standards, curriculum, and teaching strategies across the PK-3 years.

As Chandler notes, children come to school with huge disparities in their math knowledge and skills, reflecting disparities in children's access to pre-k and other quality early education programs, as well as the support (or lack thereof) for early math learning in their home environments. Children who come from supportive home environments and/or attended quality pre-k often start kindergarten with strong counting skills, know all their shapes, and understand key math concepts such as "bigger than" or "less than." But many other children come to school with very little math background. The National Math Panel recommends that all children enter school with a basic understanding of numbers and counting. Helping make sure all children have opportunities to learn these skills before they begin kindergarten, and equalizing the playing field in terms of early exposure to math ideas and skills, is one important reason to support quality pre-k programs.

But ensuring pre-k access isn't enough. Even otherwise high-quality programs can fall short in building children's early math skills. Three factors are important here. First is focus: the emphasis on building early language and literacy skills that has shaped pre-k programs and policy in recent years is by and large a good thing, but sometimes this emphasis can come at the expense of math instruction. At the same time, preschools that follow a more traditional child-centered model may not devote enough attention to developng children's math skills, either. Good pre-k programs need to support children's developing math skills, as well as their language and literacy and their social and emotional development. Pre-k teachers need to be explicitly aware that fostering children's number, counting, and other math skills is a part of their job.

That leads to the second point: Early education teachers need the skills and knowledge to support their students' math development. Many early educators are themselves uncomfortable with math, and that can lead them to downplay math, or make it difficult for them to build young children's understanding of math concepts and skills. Training programs and professional development for early childhood educators need to include content that builds teachers' math knowledge and skills. Training programs also need to find ways to make early educators who may have had negative math experiences in the past more comfortable with the subject. This is particularly important as states expand early education programs that require early educators to hold a bachelor's degree. For many early childhood educators, meeting the math requirements for a BA can be an obstacle. But those courses include important math content that, if taught properly, will improve early educators' ability to support their students' math development. Institutions that train early educators need to develop new ways of helping mid-career adults master college-level math that make them comfortable with the subject, help them understand why what they're learning is relevant to their students' future math learning, and provide them strategies to use their math knowledge in fun ways in the classroom.

But access and quality teachers are only two-thirds of the picture: To ensure children develop foundational math skills, quality early education programs also need curriculum that ensure children are exposed to important math concepts, and in the correct sequence. What exactly constitutes a good math curriculum has become the focus on heated debate among educators and mathematicians. The National Math Panel took some steps to address this, but it's probably not going to cool down any time soom. What is clear is that a good early education math program needs to balance experiences that make math relevant and teach children to think about mathematical concepts with experiences that support the development of more fundamental skills, such as numbers, shapes, and counting for preschool and kindergarten children, and acquisition of "math facts" in the early elementary grads.

The recent emphasis on early math instruction should reiterate the importance of alignment in the pre-k and early elementary grades. Math knowledge and skills are highly sequential: Each new math skill, fact, or concept must build on a set of knowledge and skills that children already have. If children have gaps in their math knowledge and skills, it becomes increasingly difficult for them to progress in their math understanding. That's why clearly articulated curriculum and alignment are so important in early grades math instruction.

Similarly, activities to develop children's math skills need to be aligned with strategies to develop children's emerging language and literacy skills. Lots of children's early math learning has to deal with developing the vocabulary--numbers, shapes, "less than," "more than"--to talk about math concepts, and children who have poor verbal skills are at a real disadvantage in acquiring math skills, as many examples in Chandler's article illustrate. Ultimately, math is just another example of how, when we're talking about early childhood, everything is all tied up together, and alignment and language have to be at the center of whatever we're doing.

The National Math Panel has recommended that curriculum in the early years focus on the goal of all children achieving proficiency in whole number operations by 4th grade. That's an essential stepping stone to put children on track for mastering algebra in 8th grade, which is an important predictor for whether or not young people will graduate high school college-ready. In order for children to achieve proficiency in whole number operations by 4th grade, the entirety of PK-4 standards, curriculum, and teaching practice needs to be oriented to this goal, starting with high quality pre-k that helps disadvantaged and at-risk children catch up their deficits in math exposure before they get to kindergarten.

But it doesn't just start in pre-k of course: Parents and childcare workers can play an important role in developing children's math literacy before they even get to preschool or pre-k, by using number words when they talk to children; pointing out shapes and numbers when they come up in daily life; and engaging children in counting as part of daily activities (ie: let's count the steps as we go up: 1, 2, 3...). Chandler's article offers some great examples of other activities familes can engage in.