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Project Rationale
The goal of the current project is to develop a more comprehensive theory of parents' support of their children’s early mathematics development, including how the frequency and complexity of parental support of children’s math development can be promoted. It builds on a previous Heising-Simons grant to Dr. Bethany Rittle-Johnson. Most research on parents’ support of their children’s early mathematics knowledge focuses exclusively on parental support of numeracy knowledge (Baroody, Eiland, & Thompson, 2009; Jordan, Kaplan, Nabors Olah, & Locuniak, 2006; Purpura & Lonigan, 2013). However, early math knowledge extends beyond numeracy knowledge and includes a wider range of skills (CCSS, 2010; National Research Council, 2009; Sarama & Clements, 2004). For instance, very little research has focused on parents’ support of their children’s patterning knowledge, despite evidence suggesting that it is an important contributor to early mathematics development (e.g. Sarama & Clements, 2004; Zippert et al., 2020). This research project focuses on parents’ support of two aspects of their children’s math development: patterning knowledge and numeracy knowledge. This project, funded by the Heising-Simons Foundation and the Society for Research in Child Development, theoretically contributes to a more comprehensive theory of parents’ socialization of early math that integrates their support of patterning development and their knowledge about patterning and numeracy development.
Recent research indicates parent-child numeracy experiences support children’s numeracy development (e.g., Levine, Suriyakham, Rowe, Huttenlocher, & Gunderson, 2010) and that the frequency of these number-related experiences are associated with parents’ math-related beliefs (Zippert & Ramani, 2016). However, substantially less previous research has examined how parents support pattern knowledge at home(Missall et al., 2015; Rittle-Johnson et al., 2015; Zippert & Rittle-Johnson, 2020; Zippert et al., 2020). This research will contribute to a more comprehensive theory of early math development that integrates a broader range of math-relevant skills and that incorporates how and what predicts parents’ support of this development. Practically, the timing of this research is critical to inform efforts to engage families and teachers in supporting a broad range of early math skills at home.
Project Aims
This 2.5 year project will:
- Evaluate the malleability of parents’ knowledge about patterning and numeracy development and the effect of increasing it on parents’ patterning and numeracy beliefs and support.
- Explore how the frequency and complexity of parental support of children’s patterning and numeracy skills in preschool relate to parents’ knowledge about numeracy and patterning development, child-specific patterning and numeracy beliefs, and their socioeconomic status, within both developed and developing countries.
- Identify culturally-sensitive ways parents can further mathematize their everyday lives to increase their support of their children’s patterning and numeracy development.”