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Original Research
17 April 2023
2,736 views
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Original Research
13 March 2023

Parents’ beliefs about the importance of math predicts their math engagement with their children. However, most work focuses on mothers’ math engagement with preschool- and school-aged children, leaving gaps in knowledge about fathers and the experiences of toddlers. We examined differences in mothers’ and fathers’ (N = 94) engagement in math- and non-math activities with their two-year-old girls and boys. Parents reported their beliefs about the importance of math and literacy for young children and their frequency of home learning activities. Parents of sons did not differ in their engagement in math activities from parents of daughters. Mothers reported engaging more frequently in math activities with their toddlers than fathers did, but the difference reduced when parents endorsed stronger beliefs about the importance of math for children. Even at very early ages, children experience vastly different opportunities to learn math in the home, with math-related experiences being shaped by both parent gender and parents’ beliefs.

4,771 views
10 citations
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Mini Review
23 February 2023

There is growing interest in stories as potentially powerful tools for science learning. In this mini-review article, we discuss theory and evidence indicating that, especially for young children, listening to and sharing stories with adult caregivers at home can make scientific ideas and inquiry practices meaningful and accessible. We review recent research offering evidence that stories presented in books can advance children’s science learning. Nonetheless, most of this work focuses on middle-class European-American U. S. children and involves narrative story books. Given the national imperative to increase Latine1 representation in STEM education and career pursuits in the U. S., we argue that it is vital that we broaden the definition of stories to include oral narrative storytelling and other conversational routines that Latine families engage in at home. Cultural communities with firmly rooted oral traditions, such as those from Latin American heritage, rely frequently on oral storytelling rather than book reading to convey world and community knowledge to young children. Therefore, we advocate for a strengths-based approach that considers Latine families’ everyday practices around science and storytelling on their own terms instead of contrasting them with European-American middle-class practices. We offer support for the view that for young children in Latine communities, culturally relevant oral practices, including personal narrative storytelling, can engender significant opportunities for family science learning at home.

4,321 views
8 citations
Parents’ wh-questions are positively associated with children’s scientific discourse (solid black line), whereas the effect of close-ended questions on child discourse is negative but non-significant (dashed black line). There was no association between parental statements and children’s scientific discourse (grey line). Figure depicts estimates which were derived from Table 4, Model 1 using the Effects package in R.
2,044 views
9 citations
Screenshot from the video showing the reaction of the pepper to the woman’s finger with soap on it being placed in the bowl. The soap breaks the surface tension of the water, which gives the appearance of the finger repelling the pepper.
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5 citations

Broadening participation in early science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) learning outside of school is important for families experiencing poverty. We evaluated variations of the Teaching Together STEM pre-kindergarten program for increasing parent involvement in STEM learning. This informal STEM, family engagement program was offered in 20 schools where 92% of students received free/reduced lunch. The core treatment included a series of family education workshops, text messages, and family museum passes. The workshops were delivered at school sites by museum outreach educators. We randomly assigned schools to business-as-usual control or one of three additive treatment groups. Using an additive treatment design, we provided the core program in Treatment A, we added take-home STEM materials in Treatment B, and added materials + parent monetary rewards in Treatment C. The primary outcome was parent involvement in STEM (n = 123). There were no significant impacts of any treatment on parent involvement; however, the groups that added take-home materials had larger effect sizes on parent involvement at posttest (ES = −0.08 to 0.18) and later, kindergarten follow-up (ES = −0.01 to −0.34). Adding parent monetary rewards only produced short-term improvements in parent involvement that faded at follow-up. We discuss implications for other community-sponsored family engagement programs focused on informal STEM learning, including considering characteristics of families who were more versus less likely to attend. These null findings suggest that alternatives to in-person family education workshops should be considered when parents are experiencing poverty and have competing demands on their time.

3,722 views
8 citations
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