Sylvain Charlebois

We also looked at classroom factors like in-class behavior, what the kids were getting in schools in their classroom instruction.

In one of the studies, we focused on, okay, we know that some kids already have a head start before they even start preschool.

So they're like three and a half years old, three years, 10 months or so.

And other kids really don't know much of anything.

So there must be something going on at home that is fostering the development of some kids and not doing much for other kids.

And so we did a number of analyses and studies on that.

In one of those, we found that parents who were high in math anxiety had kids who were deficit in their number knowledge and basic counting skills and related competencies at the start of preschool.

So before they've had any type of instruction,

the kids of math-anxious parents just weren't doing well.

Wow.

And it looked like the math-anxious parents were avoiding numeracy activities, had low beliefs in their own math abilities, and actually did have lower math achievement.

So I suspect they're avoiding numeracy activities with their kids at home, which is putting their kids at a disadvantage really, you know, before they're even four years old.

Well, I wish it was that simple.

Some of our other studies have shown that it's really the complexity of number talk, the ways in which parents talk to kids about numbers and magnitudes and so forth, that makes a difference.

So you just can't tell parents, okay, well, count more, do more of this or do more of that or whatever.

It actually has to be done in a very specific way to have an effect.

Well, so other studies have done interventions where you might have a storybook or whatever, and in that book, the kid comes up on five flowers, for example.

The parent states five flowers.

That five represents the quantity there.

And then for it to work, though, the kid has to count one, two, three, four, five, and then the five has to be emphasized again.