Professor Lai’s talk focused on the development of math abilities of young children. He introduced the measurements of math for young children. He further reviewed the journal articles of early childhood math empirical research in Taiwan. The research unveils three- to six- year old Taiwanese preschoolers’ mathematics performances by reviewing findings from Taiwanese empirical journal articles. Two mathematics frameworks are adopted, Early Childhood Education Curriculum Framework in Taiwan (2017) and National Council of Teachers of Mathematics in USA, in which Number and Operations, Algebra, Geometry, Measurements, and Data analyses and probability are included. A total of 23 empirical journal articles were reviewed. The findings are fourfold. First, most empirical journal articles are related to Number and Operations (91%) and Geometry (35%). Second, Taiwanese preschoolers master in the oral counting, object counting, and order of timing. Third, compared to the ECEC framework in Taiwan, Taiwanese preschoolers outperform what is written on Number and Operations. Fourth, testing materials and data analyses in several reviewed journal articles (17%) are not described well and thus it is not easy to get a clear picture of how their participants (preschoolers) performed.

Implemented by Department of Early Childhood Education
Date: 2022/10/17