This educator, mother, and writer details her exploration in teaching math strategies to her children. She includes such ideas as helping them learn the attributes of shapes (rather than just the names), encouraging them to recognize and sort familiar items based on their attributes, and including them in daily tasks that involve mathematics, such as cooking and shopping. Teaching math strategies such as these at an early age sets up children for a successful time in preschool and beyond.

The author also brings up the point that early math understanding seems to be one of the most important indicators of overall academic achievement in the future.

Being able to compare objects and ideas is a critical step towards developing the skills necessary for reasoning, reading comprehension, and other complex processes.

Doug Clements also discussed this topic at Erikson Institute’s International Symposium on Early Mathematics Education. He postulates that a good math program—one that includes frequent discussion and critical thinking—calls on students to “dig down” to explain their answers and thought processes. This type of thinking strengthens their math skills, but it also strengthens skills useful in language arts and other subjects.