When I first became a parent, I was constantly searching for guidance on how to best support my child’s growth and development. I read books, listened to parenting podcasts, and followed parenting experts on social media. I was on a mission to learn everything I could and keep up with the ever-changing milestones of infancy.
Of all the guidance I encountered, none was as constant- or as overwhelming- as the advice around language and literacy. It seemed like everywhere I turned, someone was offering tips for building early literacy skills. Some of these even started before I had given birth!
Exhausted and overwhelmed, I remember insisting that my spouse read at least one book to our baby the first night we were home from the hospital. We continued to read daily, narrate our actions during diaper changes, and speak using rich vocabulary. Our first child was born in October 2020, so we spent my maternity leave in isolation. I remember turning on audiobooks when I got tired of talking, so that my child would hear more language.
At each pediatrician visit, we discussed language development and what we should be looking for in the coming weeks. We were encouraged to teach letter sounds the way we might teach animal sounds, ask our child to point to things in the books to name them, and listen for specific sounds and words to emerge. As a math educator, I kept wondering when we would be given guidance about how to develop numeracy skills, but that guidance never came.
It’s been almost five years, and I’ve started to build my own toolkit for encouraging mathematical thinking at home.
As I began looking for opportunities, I found them scattered throughout our days. We started counting everything- from the crackers on our plate to the number of birds in the books we read. “How many?” became a frequent question in our house, opening the door to all kinds of conversations about quantity.
We also noticed that many toys use shapes. Rather than just naming or matching them, we talk about their attributes. While my child is still making sense of what sides and angles are, they know there’s a reason each shape has its name. We even turned “I Spy” into a shape game when we are out in our community.
The world is full of patterns, identifying and extending them can start with simple colors and shapes before becoming more mathematical. I want to support my child in building a mathematical mindset that will serve them later in life. Noticing patterns and relationships is a huge component of problem solving.
As my child grows, we’re finding new ways to have math conversations. Right now, our favorite topics are doubling and halving, comparing quantities (a big hit when it comes to fairness between siblings), and telling time.
I’m curious how others are talking about mathematical ideas with their young children and how we’re building this generation’s confidence to see themselves as “math people.”