Want your early learners to have long-term reading success? Teach them math.
Recent research links high-quality math instruction at the earliest grade levels to improved academic success through high school—and not just in math‑related subjects.
Effective early math instruction also leads to later success in reading skills and oral language abilities like: vocabulary, inference, independence and grammatical complexity. In fact, pre-K math scores are a better indicator of later reading success than pre-K reading scores, according to research by Dr. Douglas Clements, Kennedy Endowed Chair in Early Childhood Learning.
“Those results are consistent with what we’ve seen with our research and curriculum: math skills have a tremendous impact on early literacy,” said Dr. Benjamin Heuston, president of Waterford Institute, a nonprofit research center that creates personalized cloud-based instruction.
“That’s why we provide a blended, personalized approach to math and science as part of the literacy curriculum,” Heuston added.
And that makes Waterford unique; it’s the only program on the market to provide such a blended approach. Moreover, its new preschool product, SmartStart, blends several subjects, including reading, math, science, social studies, executive function and cognition.
Skills such as counting may seem straightforward, but very basic math concepts are actually some of the most difficult skills young children learn. Early math skills also mirror early literacy skills. When you view them in their most basic building-block form, you can see that both utilize skills like sorting, sequence and patterns.
Understanding this, Waterford curriculum designers have blended activities with intentional technology use and direct instruction to help children master these foundational skills. It takes a variety of experiential learning for children to make deeper, lasting connections; Waterford curriculum provides that.
Unfortunately, this proven, blended approach is not common. Even though it is crucial for later academic success, most pre-K and early grade-level curricula on the market lack effective integrated math instruction.
Even when other programs claim to include math as part of their curriculum, Dr. Douglas Clements has found that “evaluations show little or no learning of mathematics in these schools.” Clements continues, “As an example, observations of Opening the World of Learning (OWL), which includes mathematics in its curriculum, found that out of a 360-minute school day, only 58 seconds were devoted to mathematics. Most children made no gains in math skills, and some lost mathematics competence over the school year.”
“Children have a high capacity to learn mathematics but often do not have the opportunity to do so…We need to shift our mindset from ‘reading only’ early intervention strategies,” Clements writes.
Waterford answers this need through blended, technology-enabled personalized curriculum, proven to result in positive, lasting gains for students. In 2016, Utah’s Department of Education released the results of a five-year study that followed students who used Waterford Early Learning’s reading, math and science curriculum as a kindergarten-readiness tool. The study showed that Waterford students consistently outperformed control students in language, math and science assessments throughout the entire study—all the way through fourth grade.
"Waterford provides a deeply personal, multi-sensory learning experience based on a curriculum that is proven effective among early learning students,” Heuston said. “That personal learning experience is the key to instilling confidence and a foundation for lifelong learning in every individual child.”