Cookies on this website

We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. If you click 'Accept all cookies' we'll assume that you are happy to receive all cookies and you won't see this message again. If you click 'Reject all non-essential cookies' only necessary cookies providing core functionality such as security, network management, and accessibility will be enabled. Click 'Find out more' for information on how to change your cookie settings.

© 2019 International Mind, Brain, and Education Society and Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Developmental cognitive neuroscience highlights the importance of interactions between children and their environment. As young children spend increasing time in childcare, it is key to investigate the impact of “maths-talk” and maths provisions in preschools. Qualitative insights from early educators indicate a greater bias toward counting activities than would be expected given the Early Years curriculum. In addition, we quantified the observed breadth of preschool practitioners' maths language (e.g., place-value language), setting-based maths provisions (e.g., quality of maths-related activities), and their relation with children's early numeracy skills. In settings with greater practitioners' breadth of maths language, children display greater cardinality skills although our data call for the further investigation of parental socioeconomic status and education. We conclude with a discussion on the need to operationalize children's maths learning environments as diversely as possible. Enriching practitioners' skill sets may be an effective and needed way of improving early maths outcomes.

Original publication

DOI

10.1111/mbe.12221

Type

Journal article

Journal

Mind, Brain, and Education

Publication Date

01/01/2019