So, I was thinking about this idea on my walk into school this morning. I think a child's exposure to math, it's concepts and ideas, is just as important as his/her exposure to written language. I think you need an abundant amount of materials which support both, because on a cognitive level fostering math skills develops a child's brain differently than written language skills. I think that the idea is based in multiple categories of intelligence. Personally I feel that if appropriate math materials and play objects were introduced at an earlier age you there would be an increase in that child's ability to do math. So, along with labeling things with their names, maybe find some creative way to label them as numbers too. Say, if you had 12 chairs in your classroom you could have a picture with 12 chairs on each chair. This helps to represent the chair as part of a whole. Getting them used to working with numbers is so important, especially at the earlier ages, because so much is expected of children these days. I know a lot of people are unhappy with the common core and its associated standards, but there really isn't too much we can do about it right now and as college students we have a chance to study how to teach it well. I think one of the best ways to get kids to learn math is to keep them active while they do it. Numbers are best learned when they have meaning applied to them, and in my opinion the best way to apply meaning to a young child is through play. Fortunately, math is pretty easy to integrate into play. Even if it's a simple visualization, 1/2 the trucks are one color, 1/2 are another, or just basic math problems written around the classroom. If you can make these ideas and these problems commonplace early they will not seem so difficult later. We stress so heavily language development early on, and then so drastically switch the focus to mathematics that some of these children have absolutely no idea what's going on. But, because at the beginning the math is easier to memorize a procedure to find the solution the lack of understanding doesn't really start showing up until later. Imagine if, when you were a kid, all your teachers really took the time to make sure that you knew what you were doing in math. How much easier some of these things would be. All of them, I'd bet. And that's the kind of experience that as a generation of new teachers that we have a chance to foster.
