- Email: [email protected]
From the guest editors
Early Childhood Research Quarterly 19 (2004) 1–3
Editorial
From the guest editors
In November 2001, the Editorial Board of Early Childhood Research Quarterly decided to move forward on a special issue of the journal devoted to early learning in math and science. The working description they proposed at that time was as follows: “This special issue focuses on young children’s development of math and science concepts. Papers that attend to the relations between early learning and domain specific approaches to cognitive development, the social context of early learning as it relates to children’s developing understanding of math and science, and the role of authentic learning experiences in promoting development of math and/or science concepts would be appropriate for this issue.” We were delighted, and honored, to take on the task of Guest Editing this special issue. And, two years later, we are proud of our efforts. This issue of Early Childhood Research Quarterly includes seven empirical articles in which researchers address new and critically important questions in young children’s early learning in mathematics and science. These studies examine diverse questions and make use of diverse methodologies. Also included in this special issue are six shorter pieces examining innovative practices in mathematics and science education. Each of these describes a current curriculum or documented instructional practice that was developed from research. These practices represent some of the latest thinking about learning and instruction in mathematics and science for young children. Taken together, these 13 articles illustrate the challenges and the promises inherent in the development of quality programs to support young children’s learning in mathematics and science. In the first article, JoAnn Benigno and Shari Ellis compare preschooler/parent dyads with preschooler/ older siblings and parent triads in a game playing situation. Working from a sociocultural perspective, they examine parent child interactions concerning number skills and counting on a board game. As the title of their paper suggests, they find that parental support for the preschoolers’ counting and use of number skills is actually undermined by sibling presence. Apparently this results from parental engagement with the older sibling, primarily in an effort to stop the older child from “taking over” the game activity. This scenario will resonate with any adult who spends time with children and it illustrates the complexity of implementing “family based” learning activities. Also working from a sociocultural perspective, but with a quite different population, Jon Tudge and Fabienne Doucet study young preschoolers’ everyday mathematical activities. They offer a fascinating description of everyday mathematical and literacy experiences of economically disadvantaged three year olds by observing them in school, at home, or wherever children’s daily lives take them. Harriet Tenenbaum and her colleagues are interested in children’s science learning and specifically concepts of buoyancy and density. Theirs is the only empirical article in the issue that addresses science content. They use Fisher’s skill theory, which combines elements of traditional cognitive developmental 0885-2006/$ – see front matter © 2004 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.ecresq.2004.01.005
2
Editorial / Early Childhood Research Quarterly 19 (2004) 1–3
theory and sociocultural theory, to explain conceptual change. Children’s learning about water is studied in a museum and in a classroom. Catherine Sophian presents the results of a first evaluation of an innovative mathematics curriculum for Head Start. Sophian builds her curriculum from the notion of recognizing units. This is an innovative orientation and it puts a new twist on counting, the traditional focus of preschool mathematics. Sophian’s orientation, in the Soviet tradition, focuses on children’s mathematical performance and looks very promising. It is indeed a mathematics program for the future. The fifth and sixth articles also address interventions and evaluations. Jennifer Young-Loveridge describes a tutoring intervention for supporting five year olds’ number skills in New Zealand. This well-designed study examined the impact of a tutoring program in which teachers worked with pairs of children in everyday activities using books and games. Young-Loveridge notes that a program such as the one described in her study presents rich possibilities for early intervention with preschoolers in the United States. Using their new Child Math Assessment, Starkey and colleagues report an evaluation of their prekindergarten math curriculum. The final empirical article is by Osnat Zur and Rochel Gelman. These researchers explore preschoolers’ ability to execute an arithmetic strategy in a wonderfully creative, yet simple instructional procedure that blends conceptual insights from cognitive science with a sensitivity to children’s classroom interests in counting and predicting. They build upon an idea generated by a teacher and execute their research both inside and outside the classroom. The second group of articles describes innovative practices in early math and science; most of these curricula are publicly available. These include two articles about science and four pieces about mathematics. While it is somewhat unusual for Early Childhood Research Quarterly to present innovative practices, we felt it was appropriate to include these in this special issue for at least two reasons. First, and foremost, these practices are all grounded in research in young children’s learning and seem to offer considerable promise for early childhood education. The second reason for including these innovative programs in this special issue is that they provide exemplars of the practices that are alluded to in the recent NAEYC/NCTM position statement (National Association for the Education of Young Children & National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, 2002) and the recent NCTM Standards (2000). Such illustrations of practice are vitally important amidst the abstractions of academic discourse. Finally, the last article offers our reflections on unresolved issues for research in early childhood mathematics and science education. Drawing on the contributions in this volume, we make some suggestions about important issues that merit attention from the community of researchers. Although research over the past 30 years has taught us a great deal, many issues need to be addressed to insure the success of our efforts to provide sound early mathematics and science education for young children. We are pleased with this special issue. Here are some new and thought provoking ideas about children’s early learning in math and science. We think these articles, based on sound scientific practice, provide direction for high quality education in healthy early childhood environments.
Reference National Association for the Education of Young Children & National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. (2002). Position statement. Early childhood mathematics: Promoting good beginnings. From www.naeyc.org/resources/position statements/ psmath.htm.
Editorial / Early Childhood Research Quarterly 19 (2004) 1–3
3
Susan L. Golbeck∗ Herbert P. Ginsburg Graduate School of Education, Rutgers University 10 Seminary Place Box 5050, New Brunswick NJ 08903-5050, USA ∗ Corresponding author Tel.: +1-732-932-7496x323 E-mail address: [email protected]
Editorial
From the guest editors
In November 2001, the Editorial Board of Early Childhood Research Quarterly decided to move forward on a special issue of the journal devoted to early learning in math and science. The working description they proposed at that time was as follows: “This special issue focuses on young children’s development of math and science concepts. Papers that attend to the relations between early learning and domain specific approaches to cognitive development, the social context of early learning as it relates to children’s developing understanding of math and science, and the role of authentic learning experiences in promoting development of math and/or science concepts would be appropriate for this issue.” We were delighted, and honored, to take on the task of Guest Editing this special issue. And, two years later, we are proud of our efforts. This issue of Early Childhood Research Quarterly includes seven empirical articles in which researchers address new and critically important questions in young children’s early learning in mathematics and science. These studies examine diverse questions and make use of diverse methodologies. Also included in this special issue are six shorter pieces examining innovative practices in mathematics and science education. Each of these describes a current curriculum or documented instructional practice that was developed from research. These practices represent some of the latest thinking about learning and instruction in mathematics and science for young children. Taken together, these 13 articles illustrate the challenges and the promises inherent in the development of quality programs to support young children’s learning in mathematics and science. In the first article, JoAnn Benigno and Shari Ellis compare preschooler/parent dyads with preschooler/ older siblings and parent triads in a game playing situation. Working from a sociocultural perspective, they examine parent child interactions concerning number skills and counting on a board game. As the title of their paper suggests, they find that parental support for the preschoolers’ counting and use of number skills is actually undermined by sibling presence. Apparently this results from parental engagement with the older sibling, primarily in an effort to stop the older child from “taking over” the game activity. This scenario will resonate with any adult who spends time with children and it illustrates the complexity of implementing “family based” learning activities. Also working from a sociocultural perspective, but with a quite different population, Jon Tudge and Fabienne Doucet study young preschoolers’ everyday mathematical activities. They offer a fascinating description of everyday mathematical and literacy experiences of economically disadvantaged three year olds by observing them in school, at home, or wherever children’s daily lives take them. Harriet Tenenbaum and her colleagues are interested in children’s science learning and specifically concepts of buoyancy and density. Theirs is the only empirical article in the issue that addresses science content. They use Fisher’s skill theory, which combines elements of traditional cognitive developmental 0885-2006/$ – see front matter © 2004 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.ecresq.2004.01.005
2
Editorial / Early Childhood Research Quarterly 19 (2004) 1–3
theory and sociocultural theory, to explain conceptual change. Children’s learning about water is studied in a museum and in a classroom. Catherine Sophian presents the results of a first evaluation of an innovative mathematics curriculum for Head Start. Sophian builds her curriculum from the notion of recognizing units. This is an innovative orientation and it puts a new twist on counting, the traditional focus of preschool mathematics. Sophian’s orientation, in the Soviet tradition, focuses on children’s mathematical performance and looks very promising. It is indeed a mathematics program for the future. The fifth and sixth articles also address interventions and evaluations. Jennifer Young-Loveridge describes a tutoring intervention for supporting five year olds’ number skills in New Zealand. This well-designed study examined the impact of a tutoring program in which teachers worked with pairs of children in everyday activities using books and games. Young-Loveridge notes that a program such as the one described in her study presents rich possibilities for early intervention with preschoolers in the United States. Using their new Child Math Assessment, Starkey and colleagues report an evaluation of their prekindergarten math curriculum. The final empirical article is by Osnat Zur and Rochel Gelman. These researchers explore preschoolers’ ability to execute an arithmetic strategy in a wonderfully creative, yet simple instructional procedure that blends conceptual insights from cognitive science with a sensitivity to children’s classroom interests in counting and predicting. They build upon an idea generated by a teacher and execute their research both inside and outside the classroom. The second group of articles describes innovative practices in early math and science; most of these curricula are publicly available. These include two articles about science and four pieces about mathematics. While it is somewhat unusual for Early Childhood Research Quarterly to present innovative practices, we felt it was appropriate to include these in this special issue for at least two reasons. First, and foremost, these practices are all grounded in research in young children’s learning and seem to offer considerable promise for early childhood education. The second reason for including these innovative programs in this special issue is that they provide exemplars of the practices that are alluded to in the recent NAEYC/NCTM position statement (National Association for the Education of Young Children & National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, 2002) and the recent NCTM Standards (2000). Such illustrations of practice are vitally important amidst the abstractions of academic discourse. Finally, the last article offers our reflections on unresolved issues for research in early childhood mathematics and science education. Drawing on the contributions in this volume, we make some suggestions about important issues that merit attention from the community of researchers. Although research over the past 30 years has taught us a great deal, many issues need to be addressed to insure the success of our efforts to provide sound early mathematics and science education for young children. We are pleased with this special issue. Here are some new and thought provoking ideas about children’s early learning in math and science. We think these articles, based on sound scientific practice, provide direction for high quality education in healthy early childhood environments.
Reference National Association for the Education of Young Children & National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. (2002). Position statement. Early childhood mathematics: Promoting good beginnings. From www.naeyc.org/resources/position statements/ psmath.htm.
Editorial / Early Childhood Research Quarterly 19 (2004) 1–3
3
Susan L. Golbeck∗ Herbert P. Ginsburg Graduate School of Education, Rutgers University 10 Seminary Place Box 5050, New Brunswick NJ 08903-5050, USA ∗ Corresponding author Tel.: +1-732-932-7496x323 E-mail address: [email protected]