Series: About Early Math
Importance of Early Math Often Overlooked
Why early math is just as important as early reading
GreatSchools.org
"To date, the most common approach to teaching early math skills has been to surround young kids with numbers alongside their letters and encourage them to practice counting just as they practice singing the alphabet. But researchers say that this approach is short-changing children. In her essay 'Math Matters, Even for Little Kids,' Stanford professor Deborah Stipek explains the parallel to the alphabet: 'Learning to count by rote teaches children number words and 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.'"
Go to linkThis article, which includes powerful words by our own Dr. Jie-Qi Chen, describes the importance of early math, how it is often shortchanged in classrooms, and explains techniques that are becoming increasingly common for bringing out the math in early education classrooms.