Expanding the Home Numeracy Model to Chilean children: Relations among parental expectations, attitudes, activities, and children’s mathematical outcomes

Abstract

We used structural equation modeling to evaluate an enhanced version of the Home Numeracy Model proposed by Skwarchuk and colleagues (2014, Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 121, 63–84). Participants were 390 Chilean preschool children and their parents. Children completed numeracy and literacy tasks at the beginning of preschool (mean age: 4 years and 7 months) and approximately 8 months later. Parents reported on the home numeracy activities they engaged in with their children, including formal (i.e., mapping and operational), informal (i.e., parents’ number-game knowledge), and home literacy activities (i.e., code-related and meaning-related), as well as on numeracy and literacy attitudes and expectations for children’s performance prior to Grade 1. We found that parents with more positive numeracy attitudes and higher academic expectations reported a higher frequency of formal numeracy (mapping and operational) activities. In turn, formal operational activities predicted number line estimation and applied problem-solving skills. In contrast, informal activities (i.e., parents’ number-game knowledge) predicted children’s non-symbolic arithmetic and non-symbolic number comparison tasks, as well as their applied problem-solving skills. The links between home activities and numeracy outcomes were domain specific: Parents’ reports of literacy activities did not predict early numeracy skills. We discuss how our results support the enhanced Home Numeracy Model and thus provide a more complete framework connecting parents’ engagement in numeracy activities and children’s mathematical outcomes.