Teachers’ Beliefs Count: Teacher Beliefs and Practice in Early Childhood Mathematics Education (ECME)

Abstract

Teachersare the key to success in Early Childhood Mathematics Education (ECME) and assuch, there is a great need to focus on the teacher’s mind…what teachers thinkabout learning, their curriculum and the mathematics in it (Ginsburg, Lee and Boyd,2008; Cross, Woods and Schweingruber, 2009). Early childhood teachers were surveyed on their beliefs and practicesrelated to ECME.  The findings suggestthat early childhood teachers may not hold as negative a view of mathematicsand ECME as previously has been supposed. Moreover, more instruction time seems to be devoted to ECME thanpreviously reported.  However, thefindings also strengthen the contention that literacy-based activities dominateacademic instructional time in the early childhood classroom.  In line with the literature, the teachersexpressed a narrow view of EMCE, with numeracy and arithmetic skill developmentas the most important focus of ECME; this narrow view is counter to recentrecommendations by leading researchers and professional organizations.