Promoting Preschoolers' Number Sense and Interest in Learning Mathematics: How Should Parents Interact with Their Children during Home Numeracy Activities?

摘要

Through two related studies, this dissertation investigated how parents should interact with their preschool children during home numeracy activities, such as number board game playing, so as to promote children's number sense and interest in mathematics.;In Study 1, I examined Hong Kong preschool children's number sense development and their competence in playing number board game. Furthermore, I investigated whether parents had utilized number board game playing experiences to foster their preschool children's number sense and interest in mathematics. The relations of the prevalence of various numeracy-related events during number board game playing to children's number sense and interest in mathematics were also explored. Fifty-one Hong Kong three- to six-year-old preschool children were first tested on eight number sense tasks (including object counting, rote counting, missing number, numeral identification, numeral writing, numerical magnitude comparison, addition, and subtraction). Their interest in mathematics was also measured. Then, parents of these children were asked to play a number board game with their children in dyads. The parent-child interactions during the game were coded and analyzed. Results showed that third year kindergarteners (K3) performed better than second year kindergarteners (K2) on all number sense tasks except object counting and rote counting. K2 children performed better than first year kindergarteners (K1) on all number sense tasks except addition and subtraction. Usually, by K2, children could start to play number board games. When parents played number board game with their preschool children, they seldom elicited children's participation during their turns to move the token. The events "announcing the final number," "announcing the numbers passed through," and "stating the numerical relations of the final number to other numbers" only rarely occurred, though the prevalence of these events was positively associated with some components of children's number sense (e.g., numeral identification, numeral writing, addition, and subtraction).;In Study 2, I investigated the extent to which offering a training program to parents on strategies of interacting with preschool children during number board game playing, together with regular playing of number board games with children, could promote children's number sense and interest in mathematics. Ninety-one K2 children and their parents were recruited as participants; and an experimental design that involved the pre-test-post-test comparisons of four conditions (i.e., the game with a training condition, the game condition, the exercise condition, and the control condition) was used. Results showed that among children who were not very skilled in mathematics, number board game playing shared some similar educational benefits with completing mathematics exercises from books, such as promoting children's rote counting and two-digit numeral writing skills. When parents received training, number board game playing could even promote children's addition skills. No matter whether parents received training, number board game playing could promote children's interest in mathematics.;Findings of these two studies suggest that home numeracy activities, such as number board game playing, can promote preschool children's number sense and interest in mathematics. Nevertheless, parents may not be aware of the opportunities to incorporate numeracy into these activities. Therefore, training of parents is needed.