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Parents often get a jump on formal instruction when it comes to language and literacy by reading to their toddlers and teaching the alphabet before their kids ever set foot in a classroom. But getting a head start on mathematics is often restricted to teaching children to count, says Lynn McGarvey, a professor of elementary education at the University of Alberta whose research looks at teaching and learning math in early childhood.
McGarvey says her research focus on instilling mathematical concepts in young learners aims to promote numeracy the way literacy has been emphasized as a foundational educational experience.
"When educators and parents create opportunities for mathematical engagement in day-to-day activities, then children will experience mathematics not just as a skill or a tool, but a way of thinking and being in the world," she says.
McGarvey says there are a few things math-minded parents and early childhood educators can think about when interacting with young learners.
I've tried lots of things to get my kids interested in math. So far, the most effective has been demonstrating the power of purposeful laziness. What are your experiences?
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday March 22 2016, @02:27PM
Going on a different tangent, google searches claim no connection between Schmidt's "Life of Fred" kids math textbooks and Benezet, but some themes of both are the same, the whole "literature as a gateway into math" thing and sophistry/debate as a learning tool and both are more fun than drill n kill worksheets. I tried to get my kids into LoF because "everyone loves it" but it never clicked with them. Oh well. So no field reports about LoF.
And going the whole opposite extreme, where I live there's enough H1b and Asians in general to support a Kumon franchise, so my kids did that for a year or so as the only white kids in the room, also without tremendous impact or success. For folks who have no idea what Kumon is, its kind of like a martial arts dojo for drill and kill arithmetic teaching, very popular with Asians, a bit too disciplined, slow moving, and boring for my own kids, but it was probably worth trying. It sounds like an awesome idea but as with many parenting experiences what sounds cool to the parents is not necessarily cool in the opinion of the kids, LOL.
Would have been nice if either approach worked with my kids. Probably both extremes are not useful.
(Score: 2) by Magic Oddball on Tuesday March 22 2016, @07:43PM
In college (late 90s), most of my friends "taught" students at a local Kumon franchise, and their words about it were even harsher than yours, going as far as to say it was a complete fraud. From what I recall, they said parents were led to believe that it was intensive high-quality one-on-one tutoring to teach kids struggling with math special techniques of some kind, when in reality it boiled down to five minutes of basic tutoring followed by endless worksheets until the kid was picked up.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday March 23 2016, @12:05PM
From what I recall, they said parents were led to believe that it was intensive high-quality one-on-one tutoring
Maybe their marketing changed over the last 20 years. We saw what we were told we'd see. Their sales technique pushed two things, the disciplined memorization psuedo martial arts dojo environment, and they had decades of program data to create a secret sauce to guarantee progression if discipline was enforced and effort was made.
Maybe an even shorter summary is they use the gym-personal trainer model. That's great for some folks but not for everyone. In fact probably not for most people.
I didn't see any disconnect between what they told us they'd do vs what they did, but the learning style just didn't work for my kids. They were very nice people and my kids surprised me by missing the teachers although they didn't miss the worksheets...
Its definitely an Asian thing based on experience there and talking to my Japanese coworkers, my observation was both the employees and customers were pretty near 100% first maybe second gen stay at home tiger moms or tiger grannies. There's three colleges in the small suburb I live in so its not like there's a lack of prospects. Maybe they gave up on localization over the last 20 years or it just varies based on local site mgmt and customer demographics, who knows.
I have no idea what to say about tiger moms LARPing as teachers. My SiL is a school teacher with all the degrees and propaganda, and she's probably better overall as a teacher, but I donno if she's 6 yrs of higher ed and licenses and paperwork better than the mom-teachers, and she's been doing this awhile so she's getting expensive. Some kind of middle ground would probably provide maximized education to little kids.