RESEARCH & PROJECTS

Children’s mathematical learning builds on their early number skills.  Those who enter preschool with better number skills are likely to perform better in mathematics in elementary grades.  Many of these early skills can be acquired at home in everyday life.  While home activities with numerical content (e.g., playing number board games) seem to be related with better mathematical outcomes, we have yet to discover how different types of home activities – and other aspects of home numeracy environment – contribute to early mathematical development.  We will focus on these important questions about mathematical learning in two studies using longitudinal and cross-cultural data.

MATH AT HOME PROGRAM

This project aims to promote the parents’ awareness of the importance of home numeracy in enhancing young children’s mathematical development, as well as to equip them with the skills to practice home numeracy with their children. Home numeracy refers to the math-related activities carried out by the parents with their children in daily life. This project will organize workshops for parents of kindergarteners, and provide them with hands-on practice with the evidence-based math-related activities with their children.

THE RELATION BETWEEN SPONTANEOUS FOCUSING ON NUMEROSITY AND NUMERICAL SKILLS

Children learn mathematics not only through formal instruction at school but also from informal numerical experiences in daily life.  In fact, young children have already acquired some numerical knowledge through everyday activities before they enter elementary school, and such knowledge lays the foundation of mathematical learning.  Although exposures to numbers are everywhere in everyday contexts (e.g., shopping at grocery with parents, measuring heights, reading calendars, and playing number board games), some children have higher tendency to focus on the numbers than the others.  Spontaneous focusing on numerosity (SFON) is a rather new construct developed in recent years to describe the self-initiated or non-guided process of focusing attention on numerosity.  Importantly, preschoolers who can focus on numerosity more spontaneously in their natural surroundings (i.e., higher SFON) show better counting skills and arithmetic skills later on.  Although previous studies have attempted to examine the association between early SFON and later numerical advantage, there is still a lack of complete picture of the underlying mechanism.  This study aims at filling the gap by proposing two pathways linking early SFON and numerical advantage, namely numerical pathway and affective pathway.