What I mean by the statement above is that no one expects you to have your child doing addition, subtraction, etc. when your child enters school. In fact, pushing your child too hard to do math before he/she is ready can be very harmful. What we do need parents to do during the pre-school years is the math equivalent of what parents do for language. Children enter school eager and excited to learn to read and write and they never doubt their own ability to learn because their entire family unit has prepared them for success. Parents have given them the foundation they need for reading/writing and they have given them the self-confidence they need.
There are several things you can be doing to give your pre-schooler this same foundation and confidence for math:
1. Give your child lots of exposure to numbers and math. As with language development, most of this early exposure comes from reading to your child. To help build that math foundation, make half of the books you read to your child involve numbers in some way. I saw a Baby Einstein early reader book that was really wonderful. Check out your public library to see what things they have available. You may have some difficulty finding good number related books. I will admit that this is an area that needs attention. There aren't as many resources out there as there should be. But, you can use almost any picture book to talk about numbers. You can count teddy bears or yellow socks or clouds in the sky. As you work with colors and letters and vocabulary, you can also work with numbers.
Numbers are everywhere, so as you are out and about, be looking for numbers on signs, on license plates, addresses, etc. You can also make counting a natural part of these outings--count red cars, green houses, dogs, etc. This kind of counting starts establishing the meaning behind numbers. Your child will begin to learn that "five" isn't just the number after "four" but will begin to associate "five" with a certain number of objects. This is very important!
2. Involve the entire family structure. Just as grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins get involved with speech/language development with your child, they can do the same with numbers. Discuss this with them and ask for their help. They are a powerful resource! They can be helping your child understand what numbers mean just as well as you can, but everything with grandpa is just more fun! Your relatives can also be helping with #3 below.
3. Most important of all--give encouragement and reinforcement. Parents are the epitome of patience and encouragement as children learn to walk and talk. This same patience and reinforcement gives children that "I can learn to read" attitude. Parents also give their child the understanding that "this is really important." Children never question WHY they need to learn to read and they just know they are capable. This same sense of importance about math needs to be conveyed as well. Children need to know math is important to their futures and they need that same confidence in their ability to learn. Families are such an integral part of this!
If you give your child a strong foundation in both language and math before your child enters school, your child will have the skills needed to be successful. Your role won't need to be "teaching math." Your role will be reinforcing the things your child does well and giving encouragement whenever necessary.
Article Source: [ http://EzineArticles.com/?How-to-Teach-Kids-to-Do-Math&id=6186687 ] How to Teach Kids to Do Math
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