As a parent, you must be wondering, are math skills really important for your child at an early age. If yes, you are not alone. There are a lot of parents who have this misconception that math can wait until the kid starts school. But as said, it is a misconception. Math skills are definitely important at an early age from 1 to 5 year. This is actually the base that builds the foundation for your child’s academic building and elementary school math tournaments often foster a love for math.
In fact, according to a research published in European Journal of Psychology and Education, math skills at an early age can help in increasing the child’s learning skills, including language, vocabulary, grammatical complexities, etc. But generally, parents ignore math skills, thinking, the child is not ready to grasp mathematical concepts and therefore it is ok to introduce numeracy later in the school years.
However, developing math skills from the very beginning is important. And if you notice, math is already a part of a toddler’s daily life. For example, at a very young age, they start discovering and distinguishing things like different shapes, sizes, patterns etc. These are basic math concepts, that the kids are unknowingly already getting accustomed to. Enhancing these skills, helps to build your child’s aptitude for learning and higher academics.
Below are some reasons, why it is important to build your child’s math skills at an early age.
1. Builds Predictive Power:
According to a report published in Developmental Psychology, “Early math skills have the greatest predictive power, followed by reading and then attention skills.” Also, a research done on 35,000 pre-school children reported that inclucatng math skills at an early age is the strongest predictor of a child’s success in life later. How To Injects Leadership Qualities into Children
2. Math Is Not Just Numbers:
If you think that your child can speak 1 to 10 numbers at an age of three, this is math skill enough. It is not. Math is a lot more than just numbers. Rote learning is not actually learning, it is simply memorising. Your child may know the numbers but may not understand the concept. Math skills teach your child to associate and differentiate with numbers. For example, 4 may just be a number for your child, but if you say, “Bring me 4 apples from the kitchen,” this helps the child to relate with the number.
3. Math Skills Enhances Reading, Writing and Communication Skills:
This might sound surprising, but it is true. When the child starts understanding the numbers and relating to the math concepts in daily life, it develops the reading, writing and communication skills as well. When a child explores the basic mathematical concepts, it makes their minds sharper and they start thinking logically. Math skills deepen their understanding and also develops, reasoning skills and linguistic abilities.
4. Math Skills Build Curiosity:
Not surprisingly, toddlers are enchanted with various sizes, shapes and colours. Huge elephants, tiny ants, round bright yellow sun, everything fascinates them and they are curious to know more about it. Math skills, like basic measurements, different patterns, tall-short, big-small, etc, develop the interest of the child and also builds their interest in other fields like reasoning and logic.
Math Program At Kumon
At Kumon, we encourage the children to go beyond the regular school grade knowledge through self-learning. For us, every child is important and we ensure that our learning methods are pursued by them based on their potential. Math Program offered at Kumon helps in building a strong base, by easy learning methods and easy concept understanding. Our expert and trained instructors guide the children at every level, assisting them in strengthening their math skills in an interesting and innovative way. We provide personalized worksheets to help the child and the parents to check the progress. Kumon Programs, moulds your child to grow into a bright, intelligent and sharp student staying ahead of other children.
