An Examination Of The Relationship Between Parents Attitudes And Actions Pertaining To Mathematics And Their First Grade Private School Childrens Attitudes Towards Mathematics

Download or read book An Examination of the Relationship Between Parents' Attitudes and Actions Pertaining to Mathematics and Their First-Grade Private School Children's Attitudes Towards Mathematics written by Butsie Cohen Weinstein and published by . This book was released on 2020 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Children should begin to learn foundational mathematical concepts at a developmentally appropriate level at home when they are young, just as they learn the building blocks of reading when involved in daily activities. Parents of young children should understand the importance of introducing these concepts to their children in fun, natural ways so they do not miss the opportunity to facilitate the building of a strong mathematical foundation in their children. In addition to understanding the importance of math-related experiences parents provide their young children, it is essential to understand how parents' attitudes towards math may inadvertently predispose their children to think negatively about math, potentially impacting the children's attitude towards math throughout their school career. As young children are influenced by both affective and tangible experiences with parents in their homes, the purpose of this study was to explore the possible influence of parental attitudes about math and the math-related experiences they provide on the attitudes towards math of their non first born, first-grade private school children. This qualitative case study used individual interviews of the parents, specifically the mothers, and their first-grade private school children and an observation of the mothers and children baking cookies together to gather data which were then analyzed using a five step process to answer the research questions: Is there a relationship between parents' attitudes about math and the attitudes about math of their first-grade children enrolled in private schools? and How do parents' actions influence the attitudes about math of their first-grade children enrolled in private schools? Study findings indicate that there is a positive relationship between the children's attitude towards math and what they perceive their mother's attitude towards math to be. However, there was no evidence that using math in their everyday lives led to a positive attitude towards math in the children primarily because study participants were unaware of the foundational math concepts embedded in their daily activities. Recommendations include teaching parents about basic foundational math concepts and how they can be included in engaging real life activities and how making a purposeful connection between the activity and math concept(s) involved can bridge the home-school math experiences leading to a more cohesive math education.