Early Childhood Mathematics Essay

Mathematics is one of the most essential skills children are required to master. Reading, writing and numeracy are three subjects often named as being of supreme importance. Yet, while much focus is placed on early literacy skills such as reading and writing, math is often overlooked. However, it is now believed that babies show numerical capability almost from the day they are born. Wynn (1998) believed that “human infants come to this world already equipped with the ability to represent and manipulate very small quantities across a range of different kinds of entities perceived through visual and auditory modalities”. Thus, it is deemed that, starting from infancy and continuing throughout the preschool phase, children develop a foundation of skills, concepts and misconceptions about numbers and mathematics. These children then continually build mathematical ideas based on their experiences with their environment, their interactions with adults and other

It advocates that an early childhood setting should provide valuable, research based curriculum and teaching practices (National Association for the Education of Young Children & National Council of Teachers of Mathematics 2002). The Curriculum Framework for Kindergartens in Singapore (KCF), too, promotes the same principles. KCF supports the view that children bring in prior knowledge with them when they enter preschool and attain a firm foundation in mathematical concepts and skills through well-planned activities, learning experiences and the manipulation of concrete materials (Ministry of Education 2012). Hence, for the purpose of this assignment, I plan to explain the three learning goals stated in the KCF and put across justifications for having them recommended for mathematical