Mathematical Development in the Early Home Environment

Abstract The mathematics knowledge children bring to school at the start of kindergarten has been found to predict their long-term learning trajectories, and this finding has drawn attention to math learning during the preschool years. In this chapter, we focus on early math learning in the home environment, with a particular emphasis on the mathematical talk and cospeech gestures that commonly accompany this talk, probing the relation between these behaviors and children's math outcomes. We also examine the role of math attitudes in early math learning, and particularly how the math anxiety of parents is related to parent-child math interactions, and in turn, how these interactions relate to children's math learning. Finally, we review interventions that show promise in supporting parents’ math interactions with their children as well as children's math learning, and consider issues related to scaling up these interventions.