September 2022
Welcome to EFM's September Newsletter!
News
Mobile App for Android Phones With the successful completion of our prototype field study in Kenya, our free mobile app for Android phones is now available for unlimited worldwide beta distribution. Simply go to the Google Play Store, enter "Early Family Math," and enjoy some math with your family! We hope to have a Spanish version available in a month or two. Please don't be shy in sending us feedback.
Learning Math Through Play
for 2- and 3-Year-Olds
My inspiration this month comes from the 36 activities from Math4Littles. This is a 12-week program designed for families with 2- and 3-year-old children. It was created by a collaboration between American Institutes of Research and ZERO TO THREE. Theirs is a thoughtfully crafted program. Yet, despite their calling them games, none of their activities are actually games! Sadly, during the writing of this newsletter, ZERO TO THREE eliminated the links to their activities. However, many organizations provide similar activities. For example, the Make it Math toolkit for families, provided by the National Center for Family Math, has such activities, and a similar lack of games and puzzles.
Why isn't there more "math play" for young children?
Until a child can understand and react to your words, math education consists of many moments of exposure. An adult should use frequent Math Talk to expose a child to math vocabulary and ideas, and provide many manipulatives to experiment with. Bit by bit that exposure pays off as the child starts to make sense of things. As a child begins to understand simple sentences and questions, mathematical information can be exchanged and developed. The playfulness of these stages is not inherent in the activities, and is dependent on the enthusiasm and general playfulness of the adult.
The next stage has simple scenarios that an adult sets up or makes use of to promote mathematical ideas. Example scenarios are: providing a set of blocks and talking about them during play; asking for a matching sock; showing two grapes and three grapes and asking which is more; and setting up a stepping pattern of Hop Hop Step Hop Hop Step and asking what comes next. These are the kinds of activities in Math4Littles and many similar programs. They are good at providing basic skill practice, but they are not games. By the way, I would not call an activity a “game” that merely uses gamification to motivate practicing basic math skills.
I have long wondered why so few early math programs transition to the next stages of early math education – game play, problem solving, interesting pattern discovery, and puzzling. Last March I “waxed philosophical” about the advantages of these types of play in math education. So, why are games and puzzles being left out?
Are these children too young for games?
To play a game, children must understand many things. They need to understand winning and losing, or more generally, the achievement of an abstract goal. They also need to understand social conventions of taking turns and the details of rule following.
Some people argue that young children have not developed these skills. This is quickly rebutted by listing games all young children play: Peek-a-Boo, Hide and Seek, I Spy, Tag, Musical Chairs, and Freeze Dance.
As with many aspects of childhood, the ability to play games develops gradually. Families should understand that this is a work in progress for their children. Successful introduction of a game to a young child involves many iterations in which the child learns about and warms up to the game. Sometimes a child gets excited by some aspect of a game, such as the presence of some intriguing animal, and this excitement motivates them to learn the game. Other times, this process requires patience and persistence from the caregivers. Many of the first attempts at "playing" a new game may simply involve playing around with the pieces.
Generally speaking, families need to feel the additional effort to include math games is important and will pay off.
Caregivers – The real challenge!
We come to the real challenge of this situation, and it is not overcoming the difficulties inherent in having young children play math games. The real challenge is to convince caregivers with children of any age to change their lives to include learning new math games, teaching their children those games, and finding the time to play the games together. Without caregiver buy-in to change their home education environment, it will not matter what their children are capable of or what they would enjoy doing. Along with this is convincing early math education programs to realize the value of games and tackle this challenge.
In a recent prototype study of EFM’s new mobile app in Kenya, we saw far more excitement from caregivers in using our annotated storybooks than in using our math games and puzzles. Reading storybooks feels natural to those parents and they feel they know how to do that. Playing math games represents a big adventure outside their comfort zone, and EFM will continue to explore ways of lowering that barrier to entry for game playing.
Helping caregivers to transition to playing math games with their children will not be easy. The following issues will need to be addressed to make this successful.
Convince caregivers that early math education in the home is valuable and essential.
Show caregivers how to “do math” with their children. Show them that it is just as easy and enjoyable to do as reading with their children.
Convince caregivers to find the time in their busy lives. Part of this is providing activities that fit easily into their lives. Using Math Talk during day-to-day activities is a non-game example of a change that makes a huge difference and requires very little extra time or effort. Providing signage for math games in public places such as laundromats, public parks, and grocery stores is another way to make this easy for caregivers.
Make it easy for caregivers to have the resources they need for this. Either provide activities which require few additional resources or find ways to provide the needed resources.
Create content so compelling that children will pressure their caregivers to do it with them.
Provide social pressure so caregivers feel they need to do this. The Everyone Should Read With Your Child campaign made a very positive change in how caregivers viewed reading, and early math education needs to find something similar.
Early Family Math is doing everything we can to address these challenges. We recognize that there will be many good approaches to improving early math education, and that different situations and environments will likely call for different approaches. We wish to embrace this diversity of approaches, and we welcome your ideas on how to make this happen. We do not have all the answers, and we would love to collaborate with you.
If you have any questions or comments, please send them my way. I would enjoy the opportunity to chat with you. Also, if you are interested in collaborating with us or supporting us in any fashion, I would love to talk with you about ways we can work together.
Chris Wright
September 18, 2022
Chris@EarlyFamilyMath.org
Twitter | Facebook | Instagram
Early Family Math is a California 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation, #87-4441486.