How families can support children’s early mathematics learning at home

For parents whose children have just entered kindergarten or Grade 1, new fall routines can bring excitement — and some anxiety.

Parents may wonder: How do I support my child’s learning? And what can I do at home without turning family time into school? When families think about foundational learning , literacy often comes first : reading books, learning letters and recognizing sounds.

Mathematics and numbers sometimes receives less attention, even though children’s early numeracy knowledge is a strong predictor of later academic achievement .

The good news is that preparing young children for mathematics does not require worksheets or formal lessons.

Children develop mathematical knowledge through conversations, everyday experiences and even while playing — counting the stairs, comparing which glass has more juice, building with blocks, noticing patterns or figuring out whether everyone in the group has equal number of jellybeans.

Learning to count is complicated As some of my research has examined, one important skill before and during the early years is learning the verbal counting sequence .

However, counting is not equally easy in every language.

Some languages have highly regular number systems.

In Mandarin Chinese, for example , the words for numbers after 10 follow the underlying base-10 structure quite closely.

Eleven is expressed as “ten-one,” 12 as “ten-two,” and so forth.

Once children learn the first 10 numbers and understand the pattern, they can use it to generate new number words and count easily.

Read more: How counting by 10 helps children learn about the meaning of numbers English is less predictable.

Children must learn the words “eleven” and “twelve” followed by “teen” words, before encountering the more transparent pattern of 21, 22, and so on.

French can be equally hard and presents additional irregularities: 80, quatre-vingts, which translates as “four twenties.” Researchers suggest these linguistic differences can influence how quickly children learn counting , although language alone does not determine mathematical knowledge or ability.