<div>A number of studies provide evidence that the home numeracy environment (HNE) is important for the development of early numeracy skills. There is also evidence that preschoolers understanding of math language is a strong predictor of numeracy skills. However, there is limited research on the role of math language knowledge in the relation between the HNE and early numeracy skills. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relation between different aspects of the HNE (direct vs. indirect numeracy activities) and numeracy skills while considering math language as a moderator. Participants included 125 children between 3.01 to 5.17 years (M = 4.09) and their parents. Parents reported on the frequency of engaging children in home numeracy activities. Children were assessed in the fall and spring of their preschool year on their numeracy skills and math language knowledge. Hierarchical multiple regressions were conducted to test if prior math language knowledge would moderate the relation between each component of the HNE (indirect and direct numeracy activities) and later numeracy skills. Results indicate that math language was not a moderator of these relations. However, supplemental analyses suggest that math language mediates the relation between direct HNE and numeracy skills. These findings provide evidence that the relation between the direct HNE and early numeracy may be explained by preschooler’s math language knowledge.</div><div><br></div>

Early numeracy skills are related to children’s later mathematics and reading skills. Early interventions that target parent-child numeracy practices may be an effective way to promote these skills in young children. The aim of the current study was to evaluate the effectiveness of a home numeracy environment (HNE) intervention in increasing preschool children’s early numeracy skills through a randomized controlled trial. The intervention was designed to incorporate practices that have been shown to improve children’s numeracy development, in addition to a number of practices that have been shown to lead to effective outcomes for parenting interventions more broadly. Parents were randomly assigned to participate in either the HNE intervention or an active comparison condition. Both groups of parents attended a brief informational meeting and received daily text messages for four weeks; parents in the intervention group received information about the importance of early mathematics development and strategies for incorporating numeracy into their children’s daily routines and parents in the active comparison condition received information on general development in preschool. Before and after the intervention, parents completed a questionnaire on their numeracy beliefs and practices, and children were assessed on their early numeracy skills. Findings indicate that, compared to parents in the comparison condition, parents who participated in the intervention reported more frequent direct HNE activities and their children showed greater improvement on numeracy skills. There were no group differences on beliefs of importance of math, self-efficacy for teaching math, or engagement in indirect HNE practices. The study provides initial evidence that a brief HNE intervention is feasible for parents to implement and is effective in improving preschool children’s numeracy skills.

<p>  </p> <p>The Home Numeracy Environment (HNE) is an essential factor that helps explain children’s numeracy skills. Research in this field has been developed mostly focused on monolingual English-speaking families. More recent studies have analyzed this construct for Latine families using existing HNE measures. However, the existing HNE scales have not taken into consideration cultural differences that contextualize the home environment (Kung et al., 2020), and using those measures in more diverse samples might provide biased results from a deficit perspective. </p> <p>Given the growth of the Latine population in the U.S. and the importance of the HNE for explaining monolingual children’s early numeracy skills, it is important to understand how Latine families foster those skills by identifying and recognizing those families’ funds of knowledge. In this thesis, I use a sequential mixed methods design with the overarching purpose of first understanding the HNE of Latine families living in the U.S. through semi-structured interviews and then developing a culturally contextualized HNE scale for Latine families. Findings from the interviews highlight that numeracy for Latine Families is everywhere and part of everyday informal interactions. The developed HNE scale for Latine families consist of 30 items and reflects three factors: Parents-Child Interactions, Parents’ Math Anxiety, and Math Beliefs. This work enriches the body of knowledge regarding the HNE, not only because of the focus on Latine families but also because of the use of inductive and deductive approaches, the inclusion of a group of experts to validate the scale, and procedures such as IRT to assess items’ performance on the scale. This study updates and increases the cultural relevance of an important measure, as it is the HNE </p>