The impact of brief information-based interventions on the home math environment

Abstract

This study evaluated the effect of two light-touch home math environment (HME) interventions on parental math support, knowledge about early math development, and expectations for their child's math development, with attention to both numeracy and repeating patterns. Participants were 107 parents (74% college educated, 53% high income, 54% White, 36% Black) and their four-year-old children. Parents completed surveys and a parent-child play session before and after an intervention during which they received information about numeracy (n = 54) or patterning (n = 53) development via a brief discussion and text messaging. The interventions increased some aspects of parental math support, particularly the frequency of observed support of patterning skills. However, potentially due to ceiling effects prior to the interventions, they did not substantially impact parental knowledge about nor expectations for early math development. We discuss these results with attention to the promise of light-touch HME interventions that utilize text messaging.