NAEYC’s Recommendations for High-Quality Math Learning

It is important that teachers and caregivers provide appropriate and high-quality learning experiences for the children in their care. Doing otherwise may have a negative impact on children’s understanding of concepts and their eagerness to learn.  Take a moment to reflect on each of the following recommendations from the National Association for the Education of Young Children and the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics.

High-quality math learning experiences occur when early childhood educators:

• Enhance children’s natural interest in mathematics and their disposition to use it to make sense of their physical and social worlds.
• Build on children’s experience and knowledge, including their family, linguistic, cultural, and community backgrounds; their individual approaches to learning; and their informal knowledge.
• Base mathematics curriculum and teaching practices on knowledge of young children’s cognitive, linguistic, physical, and social-emotional development.
• Use curriculum and teaching practices that strengthen children’s problem-solving and reasoning processes as well as representing, communicating, and connecting mathematical ideas.
• Ensure that the curriculum is coherent and compatible with known relationships and sequences of important mathematical ideas.
• Provide for children’s deep and sustained interaction with key mathematical ideas.
• Integrate mathematics with other activities and other activities with mathematics.
• Provide ample time, materials, and teacher support for children to engage in play, a context in which they explore and manipulate mathematical ideas with keen interest.
• Actively introduce mathematical concepts, methods, and language through a range of appropriate experiences and teaching strategies.
• Support children’s learning by thoughtfully and continually assessing all children’s mathematical knowledge, skills, and strategies.

Assign a rating to each statement from 1 to 10; with 10 representing a practice at which you excel.  Over the next few weeks, take on the challenge of picking a recommendation that is not always apparent in your practice and improving on that skill. Work with other ECE professionals, take courses related to teaching math, or read articles related to the topic to learn more and bring those missing skills into your practice.

For the main article Math in the Early Years, CLICK HERE

For the article Pre-math Skills in Early Childhood, CLICK HERE

For the article Using the Language of Math, CLICK HERE

For the article Math Across the Curriculum, CLICK HERE