family communcation – Early Math Counts

How to Speak to Parents of Babies About Math

Early Math Counts — Fri, 10 Jun 2016 11:00:21 +0000

Most parents who have infants in child care are hoping that they will be loved and nurtured, held and rocked, sung to and responded to. I would imagine that parents of children this age are not really thinking about math yet even thought they are definitely thinking about language.

I have frequently written about consistency as the foundation of mathematical concepts in infancy. How can we explain this to parents so it makes sense to them? Sometimes it is best to model behaviors for others so they intuit what we are doing and adopt the behaviors themselves.

Therefore, when an infant is dropped off in the morning, greet the child the same way each and every day. This consistency will be communicated to the parents, simply by doing it. Ask the parents the same series of questions each morning, in the same order, if possible, to model the same thing.

As time passes this subject would be a great idea for a newsletter. You could explain the ideas that infants learn about sequencing through the sequential patterns of the events of their days. This helps support something that we as ECE professionals have known forever; that consistent care matters.

The Director’s Link – Summer 2012

Early Math Counts — Fri, 31 Aug 2012 11:00:19 +0000

The McCormick Center for Early Childhood Leadership publishes a monthly e-newsletter that is fantastic. You can subscribe here.This summer’s issue outlines ways to encourage family participation in ECE programs. The first half of the cover article describes several ideas for family participation and on page 3 you can find a great survey to distribute to families. This survey could be adapted to suit your program’s needs by asking specific questions that would be applicable to a smaller program or a home based child care. You could translate the questions into the home language of the families you serve.

What do you think?

Family Questionnaires

Early Math Counts — Fri, 24 Aug 2012 11:00:29 +0000

Before enrollment actually begins, families usually complete a whole bunch of paperwork. This information is pretty standard; contact information, emergency numbers, health forms, etc. I think it would be interesting to gather information from families that might help to know them a little better, especially in terms of what they hope for their children while attending your program.

It is really hard to formulate questions so they don’t sound too intrusive: How often do you read to your child? (Yikes, is there a right answer?) or condescending: Do you read to your child? (Uh, oh. I don’t but I am going to say I do.) No matter how you ask them, these types of questions often make parents feel put on the spot. It is not unusual for parents to fib a little bit: How much TV does your child watch? (He watches four hours a day, but I am going to say one hour because that makes me a better parent.)

If you wanted to find out about family attitudes about early education, how would you ask? What would you say? How could you ascertain that some families have “math fear” or have high expectations for their child’s early math education? I would love to hear how you might formulate these questions and then we could discuss them.