Preschool counts: Building a strong foundation in math

Deborah Stipek (00:00):

Math is something that kids love to do, and we should give them an opportunity to do it.

Denise Pope (00:09):

Welcome to School's In, your go-to podcast for cutting edge insights in learning. From early education to lifelong development, we dive into trends, innovations, and challenges facing learners of all ages. I'm Denise Pope, senior lecturer at Stanford's Graduate School of Education, and co-founder of Challenge Success.

Dan Schwartz (00:32):

And I'm Dan Schwartz. I'm the Dean of the Graduate School of Education, and the faculty director of the Stanford Accelerator for Learning.

Denise Pope (00:42):

Together, we bring you expert perspectives and conversations to help you stay curious, inspired, and informed. Hi, Dan.

Dan Schwartz (00:53):

Hey, Denise. Good to see you. Hear you.

Denise Pope (00:56):

Good to hear and see you.

Dan Schwartz (00:57):

Well, thank you. So I have two questions for you?

Denise Pope (01:00):

Okay.

Dan Schwartz (01:01):

In the first two years, how many synapses does an infant grow per second?

Denise Pope (01:09):

Oh, my gosh. Okay. How many synapses does an infant grow per second? My answer is, I have no idea. But I know it's a ton, because I know that synapses grow faster in the time before you're five, than any other time in your life. Something like that. Is that right?

Dan Schwartz (01:29):

That wasn't answering the question, but yes. So the answer, it's a million a second.

Denise Pope (01:34):

Wow.

Dan Schwartz (01:35):

That's the estimate, which is crazy. So it seems like early childhood's going to be important for the rest of your life, right? If that much is going on?

Denise Pope (01:44):

Yeah.

Dan Schwartz (01:44):

So you're going to take responsibility for that, Denise?

Denise Pope (01:48):

Me personally?

Dan Schwartz (01:49):

Yes. You need to get all the parents to bring math to their children, their very young children. How would you do it?

Denise Pope (01:59):

All the parents in the whole world?

Dan Schwartz (02:02):

Uh, we can be less ambitious-

Denise Pope (02:03):

Okay.

Dan Schwartz (02:03):

... let's just say California.

Denise Pope (02:05):

All right. All the parents in California. Okay, here's my id- You're going to mock me, but this is my idea, okay. Remember when we wanted to have every baby sleep on its back, and not sleep on its stomach? I don't know if you remember this, but there was a huge ad campaign? So that even though we were telling people and maybe pediatricians were telling people, there was a huge ad campaign, "Baby on Back."

(02:28):

So I want a huge ad campaign like, "Math Before Five." Or something like that. Or, "Bedtime Math," or something like that, that really gets people, you know, like, "Your Brain on Drugs," was an ad campaign, a lot of people remember that of a certain age. So I want a huge ad campaign, for math for young kids in California. How about that?

Dan Schwartz (02:48):

I love it. That was my answer too, except mine was more humble. It was just like take out one ad during the Superbowl, but uh-

Denise Pope (02:55):

Oh. Well, okay. We're on the same page. I like that.

Dan Schwartz (02:59):

No, no, that was good. So we're lucky today, we have one of the world's experts on very young children learning math. And her name is Deborah Stipek. She was a professor at the Graduate School of Education, she's emerita now. So welcome, Deborah.

Denise Pope (03:14):

Deborah, I'm going to kick us off. You have spent many years encouraging teachers and parents to help young kids learn math. So why is math so important for little kids? Help us out.

Deborah Stipek (03:26):

Well, you're asking me now after you've already launched your ad campaign?

Denise Pope (03:29):

Yeah. Well, I was trusting that it was important. Now I want to know why?

Deborah Stipek (03:35):

Well, I think the first answer from my perspective, is that little kids love math. They love doing math, once they start learning to count, they're going to count everything. So my four-year-old grandson, when he asks for chocolate chips or crackers, the first thing he says when I say yes is, "How many?"

(03:53):

And if I say, "Five, because you're five," he says, "but Dale gets seven, so I want two more." And then he dutifully counts them out.

Denise Pope (04:03):

Okay. He's like a math genius. What have you done?

Deborah Stipek (04:05):

No. But no, he's not, that's the point. Is that once he got into counting, he loves counting, but he's not a particular genius. Kids love to count. You give a four-year-old a bunch of different colored beads, the first thing they do, I'd almost put my bank account on it is, categorize them either by color or size, or by both. It's just like there's this natural thing to do. Actually, the same thing happens when you give them to a group of teachers in a professional development. They start categorizing them by color.

(04:39):

So math is something that kids love to do, and we should give them an opportunity to do it. The other thing is, in early childhood, we're laying the foundation for future math learning. We want them to have a basic understanding of number, a basic concept of shapes and what makes shapes, and what the critical qualities of shapes are. So if they don't, then we're building house of cards in their future math. And what we find is that kids, as they move along their math trajectory, or get into more demanding math as it starts falling apart, and they start having a lot of difficulty, because that foundation is not there. We also have kindergarten standards now, which are much more rigorous than they used to be.

Denise Pope (05:23):

Ah.

Deborah Stipek (05:23):

And the reason they're more rigorous is, we've learned through research that little kids actually can learn a lot of math, and develop that strong foundation. There's also evidence that engaging in math activities, teaches children other basic cognitive skills. So they end up developing memory skills and attention skills, and that sort of thing, that are valuable in whatever academic, or even social endeavor.

(05:50):

And finally, we've learned through research recently, that the math that children know and their skill levels when they enter kindergarten, is very highly predictive of their math skills as late as 8th grade. It's even predictive of whether they finish high school, or go to college.

Denise Pope (06:06):

Whoa.

Deborah Stipek (06:06):

And that, I think, that particular finding is what pushed a lot of interest in math, among folks. And there is a huge gap between low income kids and middle class and more affluent kids, in their math skills at kindergarten entry. So it's also an equity issue.

Denise Pope (06:24):

I'm totally convinced. Dan?

Dan Schwartz (06:30):

I like it. I sort of want to know if this certain experience I had over a holiday with my niece, with the reaction to this. So she has, I think he's about a three-year-old. And there's candies out on the table and he starts spontaneously counting, and he counts all the way up to 17 correctly, in order.

Deborah Stipek (06:49):

How old?

Dan Schwartz (06:50):

Three.

Deborah Stipek (06:51):

Yep.

Dan Schwartz (06:52):

He counts all the way up to 17 correctly, I thought. And the mother says, "No, you're incorrect. You counted this one twice."

Deborah Stipek (06:59):

Mmm.

Denise Pope (07:00):

Oh.

Dan Schwartz (07:01):

Should the mother have done this? I mean, this was a amazing performance by this child.

Denise Pope (07:06):

Yeah.

Dan Schwartz (07:06):

And fortunately, my niece will never listen to this podcast. So you can be honest.

Denise Pope (07:10):

You can slam her to the ground, Deborah.

Deborah Stipek (07:12):

Yeah, yeah. You know, a little bit depends on how she said it, and what her relationship is with the child. But what I would recommend, is that instead of saying, "No, you're wrong," to say, "let's count that again," or maybe, "let's count it together." Often if children count a second time, they figure out their mistake very quickly, especially if you say, "Let's count it more slowly." One of the reasons so many people don't like math, is that they learned that math was something where you had a lot of rules.

(07:46):

You had to apply them correctly, and it was bad to get things wrong. And if you get them wrong, you feel bad. And if you get math problems wrong a lot, which a lot of kids do, because of the way we teach it, you start to develop a sense of yourself as being not good at math. So rather than right or wrong, I think we need to emphasize, and this is supported by research, the child's engaging again with the activity, maybe with a little scaffolding.

Dan Schwartz (08:17):

Hey, Denise, is Deborah right?

Denise Pope (08:21):

Yes. It was like-

Dan Schwartz (08:21):

Is this your math story?

Denise Pope (08:22):

Yes. It hit really close to home, Deborah, because I- I'm telling you, I just did not have that. I had exactly what you just said, Deborah. I learned math in a very formulaic way, there's a right or wrong answer, I got it wrong a lot. And all of a sudden, "Oh, I'm not a math person."

(08:37):

And it's carried on to this day. And we talk about it on the show a lot, it's like I start to kind of get heart palpitations if someone gives me a math problem to do. Which Dan does a lot.

Dan Schwartz (08:52):

Uh Deborah, so is there a critical window here? So like in language they often talk about there's a window for gaining accents, and things like that?

Deborah Stipek (09:01):

Mm-hmm.

Dan Schwartz (09:02):

Is there a critical period, or is the reason you want to bring it younger is just to get them started? The sooner they start the better? As opposed to, "If you don't do it when they're four, you can't do it when they're five?"

Deborah Stipek (09:14):

No, there's no evidence that that is true. But I think doing it when they're four or even three, is capturing their interest. They're eager to learn counting and things like that. And when they're five or six or seven, they may not have that same level of interest and eagerness.

Denise Pope (09:34):

Yeah. Well, because it's already been drummed out of you from how you got taught it in school. I think preschool teachers then are gonna to be the heroes, the math heroes, right? But is it taught to preschool teachers, is this a basic part of preschool training?

Deborah Stipek (09:46):

So math has not gotten very much attention in preschool, or in childcare. Even in kindergarten, you'll see much less math and you'll see literacy. Literacy is really predominated, and there's a lot of things, if you don't read by 3rd grade, you're doomed for the rest of your life. We don't have those same sorts of concerns with math. It's not true of reading either, by the way. You can still learn to read even if you're in 7th grade if you haven't learned. But it's harder, partly because you've developed all these attitudes and beliefs about yourself, as not being able to learn.

(10:19):

Preschool teachers typically will not describe themselves as math people. Very few of them were math majors. They love children, they don't necessarily love math, because of the way they were taught it, just as you've described. So one thing with preschool teachers, is just getting over their own anxiety about math, because then they're not really eager to teach it.

(10:39):

What we've learned is that actually helping them develop skills in teaching math to little kids, helps them get over their own anxiety about math. They develop their own self-confidence, and they also see that it's fun. It's like, "Oh, these games are really fun."

Denise Pope (10:57):

Wow.

Deborah Stipek (10:58):

Math's not so bad after all.

Dan Schwartz (10:59):

So there was a study, and you would know this better, if it's been followed up. Where the finding was, if it's a female teacher and preschool kids, and/or kindergartners, and they have math anxiety, it gets communicated to the young girls.

(11:17):

So it was very much modeling the anxiety and it came across. You know, I assume if it was a male teacher had math anxiety, it would've gone to the boys. It just so happened they only studied the women.

Denise Pope (11:28):

I'm surprised it doesn't go to both. I mean, if you have anxiety about a subject-

Dan Schwartz (11:32):

Yeah. It was an interesting finding, but the fact that the attitude of the teacher got communicated like that, I thought was quite interesting.

Deborah Stipek (11:38):

Well, most teachers are women. And I didn't realize, there've been several studies that show that adults who interact with kids around math, their anxiety does somehow get subtly transferred to children. Not all children and not- It depends on what they're doing, it depends on a lot of things.

(11:57):

But there is a risk that if you are highly anxious, just the way you talk about math, the way you engage in it, your anxiety about getting the right answer, or about them getting the right answer? So if, for example, your niece, if the child counted wrong and she goes, "Oh, no. You missed one, that's terrible."

Denise Pope (12:16):

Or like, "Eh."

Deborah Stipek (12:17):

Yeah, yeah. I mean if you gently say, "I think you got the wrong answer. Do you want to try that again?" There are ways of communicating your anxiety. Sometimes fairly subtly.

Denise Pope (12:29):

Parent to kid, not just teacher to kid. I mean, my mom definitely had math anxiety and I mean, I am not throwing my mom under the bus, but it was sort of a gendered thing. "Oh, you want help with your math problem? You got to go to dad."

Deborah Stipek (12:43):

We did a study years ago, where we asked kids how good they were in math. We asked the parents how good their child was in math, and we asked the teachers how good this child was in math. And we followed children, kindergarten through 5th grade. And what we found is that there were no gender differences in children's rating of their math skills, until 3rd grade. And then girls started rating their math skills lower. But interestingly, their parents, typically the mother, were also rating the girls' math skills lower than they were rating the boys' math skills.

Denise Pope (13:22):

Whoa.

Deborah Stipek (13:22):

But the teachers were not. So the girls were picking up, "I'm not good at math," from home, not necessarily from school. So we know that these things can be transmitted. But I just want to be very careful that we don't conclude then, the parent shouldn't engage in math activities with their kids. Because there are lots of ways to do it in a very productive and fun way with kids.

Denise Pope (13:45):

Well, this is great for our listeners to hear. What are some ways that parents can do this, to really kind of complement what's going on at the preschool and kindergarten level?

Deborah Stipek (13:54):

Yeah. There's so many games. I mean, if you play shoots and ladders, or any game that has counting?

Denise Pope (14:00):

Like a board game, just a typical board game?

Deborah Stipek (14:02):

Board game. Board game.

Denise Pope (14:02):

Where you count, where you roll the dice and you move five spots?

Deborah Stipek (14:07):

Dominoes. You map to the five, to the five. The three to the three-

Denise Pope (14:10):

Oh.

Deborah Stipek (14:10):

... that's a great game. There are lots of card games, and one of my favorites is unfortunately called War.

Denise Pope (14:15):

Oh.

Deborah Stipek (14:15):

But basically two people play it. You've probably heard of this? Two people play it, they each have half the deck, they put a card down, each put a card down and whichever person has the highest number, gets to keep the cards. And you keep playing until one person has all the cards.

(14:31):

But one of the things I like about this is, you can make it easier or more difficult. So if your child's still working on one through five, then you take out all the cards above five.

Denise Pope (14:40):

Oh, smart.

Deborah Stipek (14:41):

So they only have to be comparing a three and a five, or a two and a four, or a one and a five. When they get better, you can put in the numbers up until 10. When they get really good, then each of you can put down two cards, so they have to add the two cards together and decide which one is more. Kids love this game.

Denise Pope (14:58):

Okay. I want to just point out, I played War, growing up. I did. I played it in this way. I think putting the two cards would've really helped, because then would've forced additions. But I played War and I still had some issues, but I think the two card thing is brilliant.

Deborah Stipek (15:12):

Yeah. Or you can do multiplication with it-

Denise Pope (15:15):

Yes.

Deborah Stipek (15:15):

... it's the kind of thing that can be- But the other thing are, there's a lot of ways to engage children in math, just in everyday routines. So when you're setting the table, say, "Can you get a fork for everyone?" Or you can engage them in conversation, "What if grandma and grandpa was coming for dinner? How many more forks would you need? How many forks would we need altogether then?"

(15:33):

Or when you go to the grocery store, "Can you count six apples into the bag?" Or, "Can you figure out which line has the fewest people?" So let's count how many are in each line. I mean, there's just so many ways you can embed math into- If you go on a walk, you can look for shapes and signs. But the important thing is to not make it school.

Denise Pope (15:57):

Yeah. To not make it feel like, "Oh, my gosh. We have to do math problems again."

Deborah Stipek (16:00):

Yeah. No, it's just a game. It's fun, it's not serious.

Denise Pope (16:04):

Love it. Hey, Dan?

Dan Schwartz (16:12):

Yes?

Denise Pope (16:13):

I have a question for you. I want you to think way back here, did you do anything special to help your son learn math, when he was little? Because you're such a math person, I can see you doing stuff. What did you do?

Dan Schwartz (16:29):

Well, yes, Denise, I did. Friday nights I buy him a pizza and put them in front of Ninja Turtles, and there were three Ninja Turtles. So that if you get a good anchoring in three, everything's set-

Denise Pope (16:42):

Wait-

Dan Schwartz (16:42):

... into the future.

Denise Pope (16:42):

... are you being serious? You weren't really trying to teach him math by putting him in front of Ninja?

Dan Schwartz (16:48):

And it was a pizza with pieces, six pieces. No, I was not. I did not.

Denise Pope (16:54):

Did you do anything? No?

Dan Schwartz (16:56):

I don't know, I'm sure I counted stuff. But I don't remember doing a lot of explicit things with him. Probably less counting, more grouping, separating things into piles perhaps. I made him do the laundry. So make three piles of clothes for me. Yeah.

Denise Pope (17:13):

That's good. Yeah.

Dan Schwartz (17:14):

And you?

Denise Pope (17:14):

I have vivid memories of Sesame Street. So not necessarily Ninja Turtles, but you know, Sesame Street has a letter of the day, they have a number of the day, they have the count who's like "one, two, three", and Cookie Monster is counting cookies. And the baker, "How many pies can the baker hold, and go down the hall?" And you are shaking your head like... Nothing? This is not bringing back any memories?

Dan Schwartz (17:38):

Zero. So my kid did not like Sesame Street.

Denise Pope (17:41):

Oh no.

Dan Schwartz (17:43):

So what do you do? We watch Ninja Turtles.

Denise Pope (17:46):

Okay.

Dan Schwartz (17:46):

But you know, he did turn out as a Certified Public Accountant.

Denise Pope (17:50):

Wow.

Dan Schwartz (17:51):

So before you start hating on those cartoons, you know, look at what it did for him?

Denise Pope (17:55):

All right. I think we have a little problem with cause and effect, but still, impressive the math skills needed for a CPA. Impressive. Good job, Dan. Good job.

Dan Schwartz (18:04):

Thank you. Thank you. Deborah, so there's a big movement for a transitional kindergarten, as you know.

Denise Pope (18:14):

Do you want to say what that is, Dan? For people who don't know what that means?

Dan Schwartz (18:17):

It's for four-year-old. How's that? Your public school is providing pre-kindergarten, is that correct, Deborah?

Deborah Stipek (18:25):

It's basically California's version of Universal Pre-K. So it's providing public free preschool, to all children, but in the context of elementary school.

Denise Pope (18:37):

Awesome.

Dan Schwartz (18:38):

Yeah. So I'm trying to get my image of math in a TK classroom. Are they getting worksheets, right, is it just pure academic?

Denise Pope (18:48):

They're handing out calculators, right?

Dan Schwartz (18:50):

Or is it play-based? How do you merge?

Deborah Stipek (18:56):

It's all of the above. It's funny, because principals will talk to me or superintendents, district folks will say, "Well, what do you do with TK?" It's like it's a whole new category of children or something. And I keep saying, "They're four-year-olds. They were four-year-olds when we called it preschool, they're four-year-olds in every other state, where they call it preschool, and their four-year-olds when they're in TK." And so whatever is developmentally appropriate and good for four-year-olds, is good in TK.

(19:23):

But I think the fact that it's in an elementary school, makes people feel more pressure to be more academic, and more focused on basic skills. The other thing that feeds that, is that the teachers who are teaching TK, right now have to have a multiple subject credential. Which is basically a credential to teach elementary school. So some of the teachers who are teaching four-year-olds, had taught 5th grade the year before. And so not all of them have a lot of experience teaching little kids. And although we talk a lot about the importance of play-based programs, where kids have a lot of opportunity to engage in activities and pretend play, and interact with peers, and things like that. I do see as I'm visiting TKs, more worksheets than I'd like to see.

(20:12):

There were a lot of people who were concerned that the sort of structured teacher-directed academic approach, would filter down into TK. In fact, there were a lot of people who were against TK being in elementary schools, because they were worried about that. Some of us hoped that there'd actually be push-up instead of push-down. That we'd see more, more attention to social-emotional skills, and playful learning, and that sort of thing in kindergarten, 1st, and even 2nd grade. But honestly, I have seen more push-down than push-up.

Denise Pope (20:45):

Okay. That is really depressing and somewhat scary to me. Because I feel like if you make it sound like it's a work thing, with worksheets, and you have to do your two plus twos, and all of that, we're going to turn more kids off to math. Is that a worry of yours?

Deborah Stipek (21:03):

It's a big worry. And I think what it tells me, is that we need to provide TK teachers with a lot of support. I mean, if you think of what it means, let's just say to teach math, let alone literacy and everything else that you need to teach. You need to be able to select activities that are playful, but have a real math learning goal. And I see a lot of activities that are playful, but you're not going to learn any math doing them.

Denise Pope (21:27):

Wait, give like a quick example of that? Because I think this is a key piece that people don't understand, not all play is created equal.

Deborah Stipek (21:34):

No. Well, first of all, there's some play where you actually develop some foundational math skills, just engaging in the activity, like playing with blocks. You develop some rudimentary understanding of proportions and size and shape, and even number, because you're building things, and spatial reasoning, and things like that. But if you really want to learn... You're going to learn a lot more if the teacher is guiding the activity, and engaging you in conversation about, "How many blocks you're going to need to build a tower, the same height as that one. What if you build them with bigger blocks?" Or just engaging the child in kind of a mathematical conversation.

(22:13):

Some of it can be child-initiated play, but actually really good math teaching what we promote, and what research supports, are planned teacher-guided activities that are fun. But you can't just give the child the activity. You need to be there and engage with them, give them some guidance in how to do the activity, listen to children's thinking and build on that. Because good teaching builds on where children are, and helps them go to the next step. You need to adjust the difficulty level to be appropriate for every child, even though they're all at very different skill levels.

(22:51):

And then you need to plan further activities that are based on what you learned, about their thinking and understanding. That takes a lot of skill, and we don't really provide teachers time to develop all of those skills. So we need to provide opportunities for them to learn.

Dan Schwartz (23:12):

Has someone written like a textbook for TK teachers to teach math? Has someone done that yet?

Denise Pope (23:19):

Idea for Deborah?

Dan Schwartz (23:20):

No, I'm already up to chapter five in my head. What would [inaudible 00:23:24].

Deborah Stipek (23:24):

No. Actually, since-

Dan Schwartz (23:26):

First, second-

Deborah Stipek (23:26):

Because-

Dan Schwartz (23:26):

... third and fourth.

Deborah Stipek (23:28):

Because California's a big state, publishers are scrambling to get TK textbooks out. Some of them just take their kindergarten textbook and stamp TK on it, or they change a couple of the activities. So yes and no. We run a website called the DREME website, and we have developed many, many activities for teachers and for parents, some of which are in Spanish. That they can implement in their classrooms, in their home childcare settings, in their homes with kids.

(24:00):

They're fun, they engage children. It still takes a certain level of skill to do them effectively. And sometimes people think, "Oh, teaching preschool's easy. I mean, you're just playing with the kids." You try, I want any of you, to sit down with 12, four-year-olds, and teach them basic number concepts, and then tell me after one day, that it's easy.

Denise Pope (24:27):

So does your- I love that you're offering this on your website. It's not just giving them the activities. You're also, I'm imagining, telling them the reasoning behind it, or some of the scaffolding that they will have to do, right? Don't like just, "Okay, set up these blocks in the block corner and have different shapes, blocks," or whatever. You're giving more than that? Yeah, Deborah?

Deborah Stipek (24:46):

Tons, tons of- We have a lot of one-pagers that describe what the math trajectory is, related to particular kinds of math learning skills. One of the things we did, because math was getting more attention, we knew that the people who train or prepare preschool teachers, weren't necessarily trained to teach math themselves. Because we weren't teaching math until the last decade or so.

(25:14):

So we created a website that has a ton of resources, including lots of video clips and handouts, and things like that, for the people who teach teachers. Whether they coach them in a school district, or teach them in a pre-service program, or provide in-service support for them. To give them a little support in taking on something that they hadn't- most of them hadn't done before, very much.

Dan Schwartz (25:40):

So a lot of the work that you've done, Deborah, is part of DREME, which stands for Development and Research in Early Mathematics Education. So this was a network of researchers who work in this space. And as I understand it, you had a sort of a 10 year convening where people were talking about sort of what happened, and what they've learned. So did anything stand out, like any discoveries or whether it's about teaching early math, or about the nature of early math, or the politics of early math? Like what showed up?

Deborah Stipek (26:15):

Well, it was 10 years, not just of discussing math, it was 10 years of working. So we did meet regularly, but it was basically doing projects. Most of the materials that are on the website were developed by that network of people. It was an unusual situation where we had funding that was stable across a long period of time, and also flexible. So when things weren't working one way, we could sort of make a turn and do it a slightly different way. It's a mixture of developing materials and resources, and then taking them out into the field and testing them. And then coming back, adjusting them, before they get on the website.

(26:56):

So it was really developing resources for parents, for parent educators, for teachers, and for teacher educators, that were based on a more systematic assessment of how they actually work. Whether it's in a classroom or in a home. There's a ton of stuff on the web, lots of math activities, but these are more tested, and they've gone through a more rigorous process, because it was all researchers who were working on this.

Denise Pope (27:26):

That's awesome.

Dan Schwartz (27:27):

Oh, that's exciting.

Denise Pope (27:29):

This is just something that went through my head as, if you're a parent listening, there's a little bit of a worry here. So I want my kid to have this math literacy. They play with blocks, they play with shapes, we're doing board games, but now I'm worried, I need to also have a script that I am talking to or helping with, to guide them in the right way. Is that just for the teachers, not the parents, or help us unravel this, Deborah?

Deborah Stipek (27:56):

Well, first of all, let your child be the guide. When they're little, you want to do things that they enjoy doing. So if they want to do a board game, great. But if you say, "Hey, let's play shoots and ladders," and they say, "no," say, "okay, what else would you like to do?"

(28:11):

So you really need to be- You don't want to make this feel like work for them. So I would let your child be the guide, and engage in the kind of activities that your child seems to enjoy.

Dan Schwartz (28:21):

I don't know if you remember Deborah, that Shelley Goldman, who's a professor, she made an app for the cell phone, for kids and their parents when they're in the car. And it would say things, I don't know exactly what it did, but it would sort of make it a game, in the car while you're driving. It would be like-

Denise Pope (28:39):

For math, specifically?

Dan Schwartz (28:41):

Yeah. It would be things like, "Find a sign that's in the shape of a square," and then somebody would do it. So I thought that was really kind of an interesting, a great place to get math. And what I don't know that the kids themselves are looking at the cell phone, right? So if I were going to do early math, I'd probably make technology for four-year-olds. I'd make a computer program and everybody's going to say, "Don't do that."

Deborah Stipek (29:09):

Oh, I wouldn't say that.

Dan Schwartz (29:11):

Oh, good.

Deborah Stipek (29:12):

Oh, no. I wouldn't say that. We want to limit the screen time, and I'm well aware of the challenge of that with my grandsons. But there's some great math activity, very interactive programs that kids have access to. And they're free, many of them are free. Like PBS KIDS, my grandsons really like PBS KIDS, and they have a lot of math activities.

Denise Pope (29:37):

There's people screaming right now, as they're listening to this, like, "No, we don't want to give technology that young to kids." There are two-year-olds that know how to swipe better than I know how to swipe, truly. So there's a big debate, right, going on about technology.

(29:53):

So the fact that you're both saying, "No, I think it's okay," but in moderation, right? And certainly better than just sending a video in the backseat for the long car ride. Maybe having something more interactive as an app, might be better.

Deborah Stipek (30:09):

Also limit it. So I have these for my grandson.

Dan Schwartz (30:13):

Deborah is holding up what looks to me to be two clock faces. One says Dale, one says Henry, and there are no hands on them.

Deborah Stipek (30:20):

No, because we have an hour a day rule. Combined screen time and TV. And we fill it in as we go through the day.

Dan Schwartz (30:31):

Of course, you make it a counting task?

Denise Pope (30:34):

Oh, but I love that the-

Dan Schwartz (30:34):

Of course you do.

Denise Pope (30:34):

No, I love that, because you can lose track.

Deborah Stipek (30:37):

They also have a visual representation. Four-year-olds, when you say only 10 more minutes, they don't know what that means. But if you can see that that clock is almost filled in, then they're much more strategic about when and what they're going to do.

Denise Pope (30:49):

That is a super, practical tip for parents everywhere, as really this whole episode has been, Deborah. So I just want to have us do some quick takeaways, like number one thing that you got out of this, Dan Schwartz, is?

Dan Schwartz (31:05):

Early math is good. Kids like it, throw in a little bit like "What's first, what's second?" You know, "Is this bigger, smaller, near or far?" You know, when you play with them in the counting games, add in some language, help them... And sounds great. I sort of want to go out and do it. I want to go find somebody's kid, and start counting with them.

Denise Pope (31:26):

Deborah's got two grandchildren that would you... Are you also going to babysit, throw that in too? No, and I agree. And I also think this idea of really training the teachers, and helping the teachers get over their own anxiety, because we definitely don't want to transmit that.

(31:43):

And same with the parents. That this can be fun, this can be easy, and this can make you like math better, and that's going to make your kid like math better. So Deborah, thank you so much.

Deborah Stipek (31:54):

My pleasure.

Denise Pope (31:55):

And thank all of you for joining this episode of Schools In. Be sure to subscribe to the show on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you tune in. I'm Denise Pope.

Dan Schwartz (32:05):

And I'm three, two, one, Dan. Counting backwards.