The purpose of this study was to investigate the ways in which parents mediated their preschool (3-5 years) children’s print and mathematical literacy, while they played an age appropriate board game. We focus on the parent-child interactions which were associated with the print on the board game (i.e., written instructions and short phrases embedded in the spaces on the playing surface of the board game) and the mathematical interactions. Our research question was: what are the similarities and differences between the ways that literacy and mathematics are mediated as parents and children play an age appropriate board game?

Our work is framed by a Vygotskian or social constructivist perspective that highlights the importance of social interactions in children’s cognitive and social development.  Children learn about print literacy and mathematics through interaction with significant others in their lives.  Learning occurs in meaningful activities and events, such as playing board games. Vygotsky (1978) claimed that adults structure shared activities so that children engage in more complex behaviors than they could on their own by working within children’s zone of proximal development.  That is, adults and significant others phrase questions and statements and provide support in relation to children’s current knowledge, with the intent of extending children’s learning beyond where they are currently functioning but not to the extent where children feel frustrated in their learning.  Parents can adjust the types of interactions to support children’s literacy (i.e., print and  mathematics) knowledge, while also encouraging a higher-level of learning for children.  Adults tend to yield responsibility for the interactions as the child became more competent and  able to function more independently (DeBaryshe, 1992)
It is also thought that children internalize directives experienced in social interactions with adults and later apply them independently.

Also informing this study is a multiple literacies  or multi-literacies frame (Cope & Kalantzis, 2000; Eisner, 1991). From within this perspective, various modes of constructing and representing meaning, in addition to print, are recognized. As Eisner put it,  “literacy is broadly speaking the ability to encode and decode meaning in any of the forms used in culture to represent meaning” (Eisner, 1991, p.14).

Thirty-two parents and their preschool children (i.e.,15 mother/daughter; 9 mother/son; 6 father/daughter; 2 father/son dyads)  played a modified board game designed for pre-kindergarten children. The participants were from diverese cultural, linguistic and scocio-economic backgrounds. Although all parents indicated they communicate with  their children in English, 21 families spoke at least one language in addition to English at home  (i.e. Cambodian, Cantonese, Coastal Salish, French, Hindi, Mandarin, Punjabi, Spanish and Tagalog). A modified “Income/Outgo” board game (Miller, 1996), along with two standard dice, a set of plastic coins and several colored plastic cars were provided by the researchers to each dyad, so that each family’s previous experience with the specific game was similar. Essentially, each player begins the game with a specific set of coins valued at 50 cents. Upon rolling the dice, a player moves along a path, which has short phrases printed in intermittent spaces, directing the player who lands on the space to carry out a money transaction (e.g. lose 18 cents).

Parents and children were videotaped as they played the game and each episode was transcribed in its entirety for both verbal and gestural interactions. The data were coded for emergent themes using a constant comparative method (Glaser & Strauss, 1967). The transcript of each dyad was read multiple times. Parent-child interactions were divided into message units (Kontos, 1983) for which descriptive codes regarding mathematics, print literacy, and game playing were developed. In addition, frequency of interactions by category were computed. Of particular interest for this paper were the parent-child interactions associated with the print on the board game, and a comparison between the types and frequency of those interactions to determine the ways in which parents supported children’s print and mathematical literacy.

Results indicated a wide variation among the dyads in terms of the number of interactions (48-580). Dyads that had the most mathematics related interactions also had the most print related interactions.  On average, there were ten times as many mathematics related interactions as there were interactions around print. Print interactions tended to focus on meaning and there was very little metalinguistic talk as parents and children did not focus on concepts such as word, letter, or letter sound. On the other hand, parents took advantage of the context to talk about and model mathematical concepts such as  number, counting, addition, subtraction, and coin recognition and value. Parents tended to provide explanations after reading the text on the board but tended to read silently and not expound upon the instructions for the game. As parents explained and commented upon the print, they tended to make transitions and talk about mathematical concepts. Some trends in terms of age, and gender were also found. For example, parents elaborated more with older children, but provided fewer explanations of the text for them. Parents provided more explanations and elaborations on average to their daughters than their sons. In summary, while there were similarities in how parents mediated mathematical literacy and print literacy, there were also differences.

The significance of the study lies in its contributions to our growing knowledge of the experiences in which children engage with print and mathematics literacy prior to school. The role that parents’ expectations and practices may have on their children’s involvement in mathematics (Jacobs & Bleeker 2004; Tiedemann, 2000) and literacy has received little attention. Likewise how print and mathematics literacy are supported simultaneously within particular contexts like board game playing is unknown. This study begins to fill these gaps. This study then, contributes to the literature regarding parents’ at home practices that support and contribute to children’s mathematics and literacy learning in the early years.

References:

Cope, B. & Kalantzis, M. (2000) Introduction: Multiliteracies, the beginnings of an idea. In B. Cope & M. Kalantzis (Eds.), Multiliteracies: Literacy learning and the design of social futures, pp. 3-8, New York: Routledge.

DeBaryshe, B. (1992).  Early language and literacy activities in the home.  Greensboro, North Carolina: North Carolina University, Department of Human Development

and Family Studies. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 351 406).

Eisner, E. (1991) What really counts in schools, Educational Leadership, 48(5), 10-11,14-17.

Glaser, B. & Strauss, A. (1967) The Discovery of Grounded Theory: Strategies for qualitative research. New York Aldine.

Jacobs, J. & Bleeker, M. (2004) Girls and boys developing interests in mathematics and science : Do parents matter? New Directions for Child and Adolescent Devleopment, 106, 5-21.

Kontos, S. (1981). The metacognitive environment: Characteristics and relationships for preschool children. Paper presented to the Society for Research in Child Development, Boston.

Miller, M. (1996) Quick & Easy Learning games: Mathematics (Grades 1-3). New York: Scholastic.

Tiedemann, J. (2000) Parents’ gender stereotypes and teachers’ beliefs as predictors of children’s concepts of their mathematical ability in elementar school, Journal of Educational Psychology, 19(1), 144-151.

Vygotsky, L. (1978).  Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes.  Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

NB: Our intention is to comply with the interactive paper session procedures whereby we will present a powerpoint of the findings of the study and then engage in the roundtable discussions around the issues that arise regarding parent mefdiation of mathematics and literacy prior to school.