The challenges and barriers were described as:

In Higher Ed…

Lack of educators/access to higher education by providers

Lack of alignment between two and four-year institutions

Lack of understanding about how early math methods should be taught

Lack of qualifications among faculty who teach early math methods

In Professional Development….

Lace of access to professional development

Lack of buy-in to the need for professional development in early math

Lack of understanding of developmental progressions in early math

Once the challenges and barriers were identified, the Illinois Early Math Advisory Committee developed three major recommendation areas for improvement with several specific and immediate ideas outlined.

1.  Organization Strategies

2.  Higher Education Strategies

3.  Professional Development Strategies

Over the next three weeks, I am going to “unpack” these strategic areas and provide a forum to discuss the more specific ideas for implementation.

1.  What does research say about the correlation between early math competency and later academic success?

2.  What does existing data from SRI International, Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning and others tell us about early math outcomes and early math training needs?

3.  What math curricula are being utilized in university settings for Early Care and Education/Child Development teacher preparation programs?

4.  How is early math knowledge being transitioned into classroom instruction and practice?

5.  How effective are both university and community-based teaching strategies for early math?

6.  How do current practices/outcomes related to early math align with core standards and certifications?

7.  Is early math instruction accessible in all early care and education settings?

8.  How can we be assured that early math efforts in Illinois provide a strong foundation/baseline for all children?

9.  How should this early math knowledge impact current and ongoing discussions and work around teacher certification and credentials, student assessments, standards alignment?

Over the next few weeks, I will write about what the committee discovered when they went looking for the answers to the above questions.

1.  There is little time devoted to math learning.  If you look at the overall breakdown of your day, how much time is spent expressly in math-focused activity?

2.  There are few experiences for children where math is the primary goal.  Take each activity/lesson you are planning for next week.  How many of them have math as their primary goal?

3.  Math still tends to be incidental, rather than intentional.  Do you ever look back at an interaction or activity and realize afterward that mathematical thinking was happening, but it wasn’t planned; it just happened?

4.  Lessons tend to elicit what children already know.  I often see this in the early childhood classroom.  The math that is taking place is repetitive and the children already know it. How are you scaffolding children’s prior knowledge so that the math learning goes deeper?

5.  The math that is currently happening does not build key foundational skills and processes.  Can you name a mathematical foundational skills?  What is a math process?

6.  “Doing calendar is NOT doing Math.” (Bredekamp) When asked how you support math in your program, do you describe the daily calendar as the center of your math activity?  If so, you need to rethink what you are doing and how you are doing it.

So… are these limiting factors also limiting you?

The report describes data that indicates a child’s socio-economic status will be a primary determining factor in whether or not s/he has access to quality early math exposure and experiences.  Furthermore, her research reveals that schools in communities that serve lower SES populations are of a “systematically lower quality” than their middle class counterparts.

The report also indicates that children who experience multiple risk factors such as poverty and language barriers are less likely to have access to quality early childhood education.  She describes children who come from “linguistically isolated households” to be at great risk. These are children who live in homes where the primary language is not English, nor is it a language that is common to the community or neighborhood.  These homes become a “pocket” that is removed from the services and opportunities of the community.

Next week, I will continue to discuss the Early Math report.  There is so much more to explore and think about…

This report is a result of that work.  Over the next couple of Tuesdays, I am going to pull out some of the most interesting and useful information for you, the providers of care and education.

Take a look at the report in its entirety when you have a moment.  Next Tuesday, we begin.