Examination of preschool children's mathematical development in the context of math environment at home and school

Early math skills significantly affect children's math achievement in later school life. The mathematics skills that children have when they start formal education are different from each other and this difference predicts the child's mathematics success in primary and secondary school. Studies point to the child's early experiences as the source of this difference, such as activities they do with their parents at home, parent-child interaction and interactions at school, apart from the child's individual characteristics. The aim of this study is to determine to what extent the children's math talk and mathematical abilities predicted by the mothers math talk, home math activities, home math environment and teachers' math talk. The participants of this study, included 40 children between 49-60 months (M = 56.35 months), their mothers (40 mothers) and their teachers (16 teachers). First of all, in order to decide whether or not the children develop according to their age, they were administered the Gazi Early Childhood Assessment Tool, and the normally developing children were included in the study. Personal Information Form, Home Math Environment Assessment Tool, Parents' Participation in Home Math Activities Scale and The Test of Early Mathematics Ability-Third Edition (TEMA-3) were used to collect data in the study. Instruments were applied by the researcher to the participants through face-to-face interviews. In addition, the language samples of the children, mothers and teachers were recorded in order to determine math talks of them. Language samples were collected using a voice recorder and lapel microphone attached to the participants. The pilot study of the study was carried out in May and June 2017, and the data collection process was carried out between October 2017 and June 2018. Language samples obtained from children, mothers and teachers were analyzed using the coding schema created within the scope of the study. Then, the number of math words used by each participant in each category was calculated. The data were analyzed using Correlation and Regression analysis. As a result of the Correlation, Regression and Hierarchical Regression analysis, it was found that the mothers' math talk was statistically significant and positively correlated with the children's math talk in each category. In addition, a statistically significant positive relationship was found between teachers' time talk and children's time talk. On the other hand, it was determined that there is a statistically significant but negative relationship between teachers' classification talk and children's classification talk. Moreover, the analyzes conducted to determine the predictors of the children's math talk revealed that among the variables of mothers' math talk, home math activities, home math environment and teachers' math talk, only mothers' math talk predicted children's math talk. After controlling for the children's age, home math activities and mothers' math talk significantly predicted children's math skills and explained 39% of the total variance of children's math abilities. When the contribution of variables to the hierarchical regression model was examined separately, it was concluded that the home math activities were more important than mothers' math talk in predicting children's mathematical abilities.