Playing The Ladybug Game: parent guidance of young children's numeracy activities

Abstract

Parent guidance for numeracy activities and preschoolers' numeracy performance were examined in the context of playing a board game in three sessions over a two-week period. Twenty-eight parent–child dyads were randomly assigned to a numeracy awareness group in which parents were provided with suggested numeracy activities to incorporate into the games, or a comparison group provided with no numeracy instructions. Parents in the numeracy awareness group provided guidance for basic and more complex numeracy skills at approximately twice the rate of parents in the comparison group. Children exposed to more numeracy questions during the games generated more correct responses. These results support the view that activities occurring in children's daily lives can be used by parents to enhance children's exposure to numeracy-related content and enrich socio-cultural interactions related to numeracy.

Keywords:

• parent–child interactions
• parenting
• numeracy
• mathematics
• preschoolers
• games

Acknowledgements

We are extremely grateful to the families who participated in the study. We thank the Honors and Undergraduate Research Programmes of Elon University for funds in support of this research provided to the undergraduate co-authors, and the Faculty Research and Development Committee at Elon University for support provided to the first author.