The University of Wisconsin-Madison – Staff Writer
“In study after study, high-quality early education is showing to be vitally important in placing children of all backgrounds on a path to academic success. The importance of reading and early literacy development, in particular, is drilled into the consciousness of parents and those who look after and educate young children. Sometimes lost in this early education conversation is the significance of mathematics, a fact that strikes UW-Madison’s Beth Graue as peculiar. “Literacy has long garnered lots of attention but researchers have found that mathematics knowledge is a better predictor of later academic achievement than early literacy,” says Graue, a former kindergarten teacher who is the Sorenson Professor of Childhood Studies and chair of the nation’s No. 1-ranked Department of Curriculum and Instruction. Anita Wager, an assistant professor of mathematics education with UW-Madison’s Department of Curriculum and Instruction, and Graue have spent the past five years working with local 4-year-old kindergarten teachers on a project funded by the National Science Foundation that examines teaching math in 4K.”(more)