catalyst-chicago.org

Kindergarten math skills are the best predictor of later school success for children, say researchers. Yet, preschool education in the United States tends to focus more on building skills for reading rather than mathematics.

Around 120 early childhood educators from around the country gathered recently at the Erikson Institute’s first international symposium on early math education, to hear educators from China, Japan, Austria and Singapore describe math instruction in those countries and to discuss strategies for improving math skills in young children in the U.S.  

“We look at everything through a literacy lens. We don’t look at what we can do with math,” said Sara Slaughter, the education program director at the McCormick Foundation, which supported the symposium.

Sometimes, getting children into preschool requires an early start. Take the Carole Robertson Center for Learning's Parent-Child Home Program, which works with low-income children as young as 15 months. The program, modeled on a national initiative launched in the 1960s, sends home visitors out twice a week to read to children and play with them using carefully chosen books and toys that the children get to keep.

A program that started out serving hard-to-reach preschoolers in the Austin neighborhood has since spread to suburbs south and west of the city.

The program brings at-risk children in home-based day care to nearby child care centers for part of the day, to give them the benefit of an early-education curriculum taught by certified teachers. The goal is to serve youngsters who are in need of preschool but are being cared for by relatives, friends or in other home settings.