Chinese parents’ support of preschoolers’ mathematical development

Abstract

Research has documented the critical role played by the early home environment in children’s mathematical development in Western contexts. Yet little is known about how Chinese parents support their preschoolers’ development of math skills. The Chinese context is of particular interest because Chinese children outperform their Western counterparts in math, even early in development. The current study sought to fill this gap by examining a sample of 90 families of 4- and 5-year-olds from mainland China. Parental support—as measured by the frequency of parent–child engagement in home activities as well as parent number talk—and parents’ role in children’s numeracy skills were investigated. Results indicate wide variation among parents in both types of support. Frequency of engagement in formal numeracy activities, including counting objects and reading number story books, was related to children’s knowledge of cardinality. A principal components analysis did not identify informal numeracy activities as a distinct home activity component, likely due to the infrequent occurrences of game-like numeracy activities among the Chinese families. Instead, a structured activity component emerged (e.g., playing musical instruments) and was positively related to children’s arithmetic skills. Diversity, but not quantity, of parent number talk was related to children’s symbolic magnitude understanding. The distinctive relationships between specific parental measures and child outcomes speak to the need for nuanced identification of home environment factors that are beneficial to particular math competencies. The findings also suggest cultural variations in the mechanisms that support children’s mathematical development, highlighting the merits of investigating this topic in non-Western contexts.