A child being asked if they would like “more snack” or a caregiver counting a young child’s fingers or toes, starts to teach children about quantity and the order of numerals before they are ever taught to recognize numbers. They do, however, require language (for clarification, this language does not need to be spoken, various sign languages are included in this learning process). None of these math skills require numerals.
Math learning starts with counting physical objects with caretakers, understanding concepts of less and more or full and empty by playing with food or toys, and general ideas of mass with bigger and smaller (Mazzocco & Thompson, 2005). Rather, math learning starts with concepts of quantity, size and comparisons, and the words that represent numbers. Early Math Learning and LanguageĬhildren do not start learning math when they are first taught about numbers. As advertised, this post will focus on the specific role of language skills for supporting math learning. We have discussed the impact of attention and executive function on math ability in previous blog posts and we’ll address memory and processing speed in the future.
These skills include attentional control, executive function, memory, language and processing speed (or fluency).
While not specific to math, domain general skills help students learn and perform math skills. Domain-general skills can be thought of as the support system for a student’s math skills.