Everyone from pediatricians to preschool teachers is encouraging daily reading to young children, at home and while out in the community. Uplifting early literacy exposure has been a priority for decades.
But what about math?
Research indicates that pre-elementary school knowledge of early math concepts—like measurement, numbers, and understanding how shapes fit together—is the most powerful predictor of later learning. Yet caregivers and communities of young children are not met with the same messaging around its importance. More crucially, community resources to support early math learning are not always available.
The Boston College Center for Thriving Children is setting out to change that. Through two initiatives in Boston neighborhoods, the center has teamed up with local organizations to uplift early math learning in the community.
The team partnered with Brookside Community Health Center in Jamaica Plain and MathTalk to make playful early math learning opportunities a part of pediatric visits. With funding from the Heising-Simons Foundation, they created physical installations outside the health center and in its pediatric waiting room and exam rooms. Families are greeted by a life-sized baby giraffe, which not only makes visits more fun but also encourages discussion about measurement. Footprints that reflect the real size and stride of a baby giraffe lead to the exam rooms, inspiring movement and discussions around the concept of distance. In the exam rooms, children can see how tall they are compared to a stack of bananas or basketballs, reducing anxiety around medical visits while encouraging counting.
“Pediatricians care more and more about school readiness. They see readiness for school as being part of health care, although many focus almost entirely on literacy. Our team is asking ‘What if we got early math to be at the level of literacy?’ If pediatricians were able to give the same kinds of messages about early math that they do about literacy, that would be a huge win,” said Eric Dearing, Executive Director of the Center for Thriving Children.
The new installations, as well as resources around early math learning provided to pediatricians, had a real impact.
“We found that pediatricians and other members of the health team were much more likely to talk to patients and their caregivers about math during well visits. Having that stimulus around them made them so much more likely to talk about shapes and measurements and other math concepts. And we found that children were very likely to engage and draw their caregivers into conversations about math as a result of the installations,” said Sara Schnitzer, Coordinator of Scholar Initiatives at the Center for Thriving Children.
This success led to another opportunity to embed early math learning in the community. With a new $500,000 grant from the Heising-Simons Foundation, the Center for Thriving Children is teaming up with Math Talk and a number of community organizations to create physical and virtual math trails in Boston’s Nubian Square. There will be an app that families can use to discover math opportunities around the neighborhood. Completing math challenges through the app will earn children “Math Bucks” that they can spend at local businesses. Meanwhile, on sidewalks throughout the neighborhood, there will be physical math learning opportunities like measurement games or shape hunt activities, along with tips for caregivers.
“Children will be able to go from school to Nubian Market to the barber shop and home, along the way encountering people and installations that are lifting up opportunities for them to thrive in math learning and beyond,” said Dearing. “It’s a way to connect school, home, and the community at large to support children’s early math learning and their health and well-being. It’s a whole child, whole family, whole community experience to enrich children’s lives and help them thrive while also helping our communities thrive.”
This project is a team effort with community partners including Countdown to Kindergarten, the Franklin Park Zoo, the Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative, the Dudley Street Neighborhood Charter School, Roxbury Roots Preschool, the YMCA, Boston Medical Center, and various businesses in the neighborhood. Input from community members will be gathered to decide where MathTalk installations will go and what they will look like.
The math trails will be created over the next 18 months. The Center for Thriving Children will play a special role in evaluating the project and tracking lessons learned with the goal of creating a guidebook to help other communities uplift early math learning.
“We want everyone in the community to feel that they have a role to play in supporting young children in their development and learning. We hope this project will encourage a sense of connectedness and community while increasing opportunities to talk about math and find math in everyday moments,” said Schnitzer.
