Knowing what they know: Preschool teachers’ knowledge of math skills and its relation to instruction

• Published in: Journal of experimental child psychology Vol. 246; p. 105996
• Main Authors: Ban, Jiwon, Msall, Camille, Douglas, Ashli-Ann, Rittle-Johnson, Bethany, Laski, Elida V.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Elsevier Inc 01-10-2024
• Subjects: Adult; Child Development - physiology; Child, Preschool; Early mathematics development; Female; Humans; Male; Mathematics - education; Mathematics instruction; Preschool; School Teachers - psychology; Teacher characteristics; Teacher knowledge; Early mathematics development; Preschool; Mathematics instruction; Teacher knowledge; Teacher characteristics
• ISSN: 0022-0965; 1096-0457; 1096-0457
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2024.105996

•Preschool teachers have fair knowledge of math skills developed during preschool.•Teachers’ knowledge varies across numeracy, pattern, and spatial/geometric domains.•Knowledge is related to professional development, but not education or experience.•Greater knowledge is related to more frequent math instruction of key skills.
Math experiences during the preschool years play an important role in children’s later math learning. Preschool teachers exhibit considerable variability in the amount and types of mathematics activities they engage in with their students; one potentially important source of these individual differences is adults’ knowledge of early math development. The current study aimed to describe preschool teachers’ knowledge of numeracy, patterning, and spatial/geometric skills developed in preschool and its relation to their reported mathematics instruction. Participants (N = 83) completed a survey in which they judged whether particular early math skills could be observed in typically developing 4-year-olds in the United States and reported their frequency of engaging in different math instructional activities. Pre- and in-service preschool teachers’ knowledge varied across the different domains (i.e., numeracy, patterning, and spatial/geometric) of mathematical thinking, but their reported frequency of instruction did not. Teachers who were found to be more accurate in their knowledge of early math development were more likely to report higher frequency of math instruction; looking specifically at the domains, the strength of association between knowledge and instruction was the strongest for numeracy. Such findings highlight the possibility that supporting preschool teachers’ knowledge of the range of math skills their students can be developing may be one component of improving early math teaching and learning.