Nursery World - Sorting it out (1)

<P> Mathematics is an area likely to be coloured by parents' own lack of confidence or their high ambitions for their child. <B> Penny Tassoni </B> explains how best to approach it </P>

Mathematics is an area likely to be coloured by parents' own lack of confidence or their high ambitions for their child. Penny Tassoni explains how best to approach it

Despite the Foundation Stage being very much about practical learning through the senses and through play, many early years practitioners are finding that parents are expecting their children to be 'producing work', preferably in the form of worksheets.

This is especially true with maths. Often people simply see maths as getting the right answer to sums, rather than the understanding of concepts and the ability to manipulate them. This approach to maths is particularly common among parents who feared the subject when they were at school themselves and who do not feel confident in their mathematical abilities. For these parents, worksheets are a security blanket. They are seen as evidence that their child is learning or being 'stretched'.

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