60-day returns • free shipping on USA orders $129+
Article About Delayed Mathematics
- This topic has 5 replies, 6 voices, and was last updated 8 years, 11 months ago by
.
Viewing 6 posts - 1 through 6 (of 6 total)
- Posts
A friend shared this interesting article about historical and evidence-based approaches to introducing math to children, and I thought you all might be interested as well:
http://www.triviumpursuit.com/articles/research_on_teaching_math.php
This paragraph toward the end really struck me as being inspiring as I explore the Early Years:
“Not formally teaching arithmetic before age ten frees up a lot of time for other activities which will build the vocabulary of the child. Vocabulary is the number one index of intelligence. Developing vocabulary was one of the deliberate foci of ancient education. We waste valuable time for developing vocabulary and verbal language skills if we instead spend those hours teaching a five year old to count by fives. (He’ll know it intuitively by age ten anyway, without ever being taught.) Instead, we ought to spend those hours reading to him. We only have so much time in the day. Do we want to spend it trying to force math skills into a child who developmentally is not optimally prepared, or spend it doing what is developmentally natural to a young child – learning new words and associating them with new ideas and experiences. Stretch the child’s vocabulary during the formative years, and when he’s developmentally ready to do some deeper thinking, he’ll have a mind prepared to take on the task, and he’ll take off like a rocket.”
Thanks for sharing. This is a very interesting article. I find myself nodding my head and gaining some understanding of why my children had ‘difficulties’ in math in their younger years. It seems to line up with the CM idea of delaying formal grammar instruction and spelling until a child is older.
Blessings,
Paula
This is very interesting. My youngest children especially just don’t “get” math no matter how we approach it or how much I help them. Do I dare just drop it until they show more readiness? I’ve always felt comfortable doing that with reading. Why not math?
I’m bumping this because I just read this tonight and am wondering the same thing ^^^ . My son is 8 and we’ve been forcing formal academic math since he was 5 – and he has struggled and consequently HATES math. I’m toying with backing off for a bit.
I think the key here is to note that what is being suggested is that we wait to schedule formal mathematics instruction until a later time. I think what makes some nervous about this is the feeling that you are simply ignoring math until age 10, which, of course, is not the case. If you step back and examine what sort of activities you are involving your young children in (“How many little cars do you have?” “Can you sort the clean forks and spoons from the dishwasher so we can put them away?”), you see that much math readiness learning is naturally taking place. However, when you schedule your school day, not having a 15-minute slot for specifically teaching math (along with not having to spend prep time on that) means more time to read and do other valuable things.
I sit on the advisory committee for our church’s daycare, and I know if I simply made a general statement, “Let’s not teach the Pre-K kids math,” I would be met by more than just raised eybrows, LOL. However, I intend to forward the article to the executive officers so we can open up a discussion as to whether we are spending more time on “formal” math instruction and perhaps a little less time on reading good literature to the children.
(Okay, now….don’t get me started on all of the twaddle they read to the kids in the school!)
Viewing 6 posts - 1 through 6 (of 6 total)
- The topic ‘Article About Delayed Mathematics’ is closed to new replies.