Role of Parent Literacy and Numeracy Expectations and Activities in Predicting Early Numeracy Skills

Abstract

The home numeracy environment (i.e., parents' numeracy expectations and activities), is related to early numeracy in young children. As recent studies have shown that both cognitive and linguistic factors play an important role in predicting numeracy development, it may be assumed that rather than the home numeracy environment, the home literacy environment predicts early numeracy. The present study examined this hypothesis by focusing on the specificity of the home numeracy environment. In a sample of 60 kindergartners, we assessed cognitive (nonverbal reasoning, working memory) and linguistic abilities (phonological awareness, grammatical skills), as well as early numeracy skills, while exploring their home literacy environment and home numeracy environment from parent questionnaires. We found that home numeracy environment predicted early numeracy skills, after controlling for child factors and home literacy environment. The home numeracy environment can be seen as a unique factor in the home environment in predicting numeracy outcomes.