Preschool Math

Are you a "math person"? As it turns out, being a "math person" goes all the way back to preschool...

I wanted to share this fantastic article that I found today by Heidi Butkus.  Heidi is a Kindergarten teacher in California, and she is the owner and founder of HeidiSongs.com.  I have seen Heidi speak at a conference, and she is very enlightening. 

This is the beginning of her article:

Preschool math instruction is incredibly important, and how well a child learns the basic concepts during this foundational time can make the defining difference in whether or not a child sees himself as “a math person” or “not a math person.”  Research is now showing us preschool math achievement is an even greater predictor of school success than early pre-reading skills!  The article states, “We found that only three of the school-entry measures predicted subsequent academic success: early reading, early math and attention skills, with early math skills being most consistently predictive,” Duncan says.”

So, having a strong foundation in math is even more important than having a strong foundation in reading in the early years of life. 

This article details 6 math skills that preschoolers should have a solid grasp on before Kindergarten. In case you don't want to read the whole article, here they are:

1. Counting real objects one by one accurately

2. Counting Aloud (by rote, not counting real objects)

3. Recognizing the dot patterns on dice as numbers

4. Recognizing the numbers 1 - 10 out of order and the basic shapes

5. Sorting

6. Patterning

Click below to get more details on what these skills are. 

Click here to read the article.

I am proud to say that we practice each of the skills in this article in many and various ways all throughout the school year!