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The relation between home numeracy practices and a variety of math skills in elementary school children

A growing number of studies suggest that the frequency of numeracy experiences that parents provide at home may relate to children’s mathematical development. However, the relation between home numeracy practices and children’s numerical skills is complex and might depend upon both the type and diff...

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Autores principales: Girard, Cléa, Bastelica, Thomas, Léone, Jessica, Epinat-Duclos, Justine, Longo, Léa, Prado, Jérôme
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8452026/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34543301
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0255400
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author Girard, Cléa
Bastelica, Thomas
Léone, Jessica
Epinat-Duclos, Justine
Longo, Léa
Prado, Jérôme
author_facet Girard, Cléa
Bastelica, Thomas
Léone, Jessica
Epinat-Duclos, Justine
Longo, Léa
Prado, Jérôme
author_sort Girard, Cléa
collection PubMed
description A growing number of studies suggest that the frequency of numeracy experiences that parents provide at home may relate to children’s mathematical development. However, the relation between home numeracy practices and children’s numerical skills is complex and might depend upon both the type and difficulty of activities, as well as the type of math skills. Studies have also argued that this relation may be driven by factors that are not systematically controlled for in the literature, including socio-economic status (SES), parental math skills and children’s IQ. Finally, as most prior studies have focused on preschoolers, it remains unclear to what extent there remains a relation between the home numeracy environment and math skills when children are in elementary school. In the present study, we tested an extensive range of math skills in 66 8-year-olds, including non-symbolic quantity processing, symbolic number understanding, transcoding, counting, and mental arithmetic. We also asked parents to complete a questionnaire about their SES, academic expectations, academic attitudes, and the numeracy practices that they provide at home. Finally, we measured their arithmetic fluency as a proxy for parental math skills. Over and above differences in socio-economic status, parental arithmetic fluency, child’s IQ, and time spent with the child, we found a positive relation between the frequency of formal numeracy practices that were at or above grade level and two separate measures of mental arithmetic. We further found that the frequency of these advanced formal numeracy practices was related to parents’ academic expectations. Therefore, our study shows that home numeracy experiences predict arithmetic skills in elementary school children, but only when those activities are formal and sufficiently challenging for children.
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spelling pubmed-84520262021-09-21 The relation between home numeracy practices and a variety of math skills in elementary school children Girard, Cléa Bastelica, Thomas Léone, Jessica Epinat-Duclos, Justine Longo, Léa Prado, Jérôme PLoS One Research Article A growing number of studies suggest that the frequency of numeracy experiences that parents provide at home may relate to children’s mathematical development. However, the relation between home numeracy practices and children’s numerical skills is complex and might depend upon both the type and difficulty of activities, as well as the type of math skills. Studies have also argued that this relation may be driven by factors that are not systematically controlled for in the literature, including socio-economic status (SES), parental math skills and children’s IQ. Finally, as most prior studies have focused on preschoolers, it remains unclear to what extent there remains a relation between the home numeracy environment and math skills when children are in elementary school. In the present study, we tested an extensive range of math skills in 66 8-year-olds, including non-symbolic quantity processing, symbolic number understanding, transcoding, counting, and mental arithmetic. We also asked parents to complete a questionnaire about their SES, academic expectations, academic attitudes, and the numeracy practices that they provide at home. Finally, we measured their arithmetic fluency as a proxy for parental math skills. Over and above differences in socio-economic status, parental arithmetic fluency, child’s IQ, and time spent with the child, we found a positive relation between the frequency of formal numeracy practices that were at or above grade level and two separate measures of mental arithmetic. We further found that the frequency of these advanced formal numeracy practices was related to parents’ academic expectations. Therefore, our study shows that home numeracy experiences predict arithmetic skills in elementary school children, but only when those activities are formal and sufficiently challenging for children. Public Library of Science 2021-09-20 /pmc/articles/PMC8452026/ /pubmed/34543301 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0255400 Text en © 2021 Girard et al https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Girard, Cléa
Bastelica, Thomas
Léone, Jessica
Epinat-Duclos, Justine
Longo, Léa
Prado, Jérôme
The relation between home numeracy practices and a variety of math skills in elementary school children
title The relation between home numeracy practices and a variety of math skills in elementary school children
title_full The relation between home numeracy practices and a variety of math skills in elementary school children
title_fullStr The relation between home numeracy practices and a variety of math skills in elementary school children
title_full_unstemmed The relation between home numeracy practices and a variety of math skills in elementary school children
title_short The relation between home numeracy practices and a variety of math skills in elementary school children
title_sort relation between home numeracy practices and a variety of math skills in elementary school children
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8452026/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34543301
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0255400
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