To provide a landscape of mathematics activities children experience in U.S. preschool and kindergarten classrooms, we observed time children spent in mathematics activities (and — as a contrast — literacy) in 101 geographically diverse early childhood classrooms in seven U.S. states. We also observed what mathematics content, grouping strategies, and management formats teachers engaged during classroom mathematics activities. Each observation lasted approximately 2 hours; collectively these observations focused on 930 children observed one to three times during the 2018/2019 or 2019/2020 school year. Averaging across individuals’ data within classrooms, we found that mathematics and literacy activities comprised 5% and 45% of time observed in preschool classrooms, respectively; and 25% and 42% of time observed in kindergarten classrooms, respectively. At both grades, when mathematics activities occurred, they were proportionally more often teacher-led rather than child-led. These findings raise concerns about the paucity of mathematics and over-reliance on developmentally inappropriate teacher-managed mathematics instruction in early childhood classrooms, especially preschools. Amount of time in math did not vary by preschool auspice, but time in literacy and the proportion of math time devoted to specific math content did: In Head Start classrooms we observed lowest percentage of time in literacy (and the highest percentage of time in non-instruction) compared to all other auspices. Across auspices, numeracy was the predominant math content area overall, but especially in Head Start classrooms. Thus, some aspects of early mathematics may differ with program auspice, suggesting that recommendations to increase and improve early mathematics activities may need to consider auspice characteristics.

中文翻译：

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美国学前班和幼儿园课堂的数学


为了提供儿童在美国学前班和幼儿园教室中经历的数学活动的概况，我们观察了美国 7 个州 101 个地理位置不同的幼儿教室中儿童花在数学活动（以及作为对比的识字）上的时间。我们还观察了教师在课堂数学活动中所采用的数学内容、分组策略和管理形式。每次观察持续约2小时；这些观察总共针对 930 名儿童，在 2018/2019 或 2019/2020 学年期间观察了一到三次。对教室内个人数据进行平均后，我们发现数学和识字活动分别占学前班教室观察时间的 5% 和 45%；在幼儿园教室中观察的时间分别为 25% 和 42%。在这两个年级，当数学活动发生时，比例上更多的是由教师主导，而不是由孩子主导。这些发现引起了人们对幼儿课堂（尤其是学前班）数学匮乏以及过度依赖与发展不适当的教师管理的数学教学的担忧。数学时间的长短并没有因学前班的支持而变化，但识字时间和专门用于特定数学内容的数学时间比例却有所不同：在启蒙课堂中，我们观察到识字时间百分比最低（而非识字时间百分比最高）。 -指令）与所有其他主持相比。总的来说，算术是主要的数学内容领域，尤其是在 Head Start 课堂上。 因此，早期数学的某些方面可能与预兆不同，这表明增加和改进早期数学活动的建议可能需要考虑预兆特征。