The purpose of this research was to measure the frequency and variety of number activities occurring in the homes of pre-school and kindergarten children and to determine if there was a relationship between those activities and the children's mathematical performance. In two studies, parents were interviewed over the telephone and asked how often their child or they and their child had engaged in each of 33 number-related activities over the last week. Both studies found considerable variability in the frequency and type of number activities that children participated in at home. There was a positive correlation between the frequency of number activities that parents reported for their children and parental participation in the same activities. In addition, in study 2' parental reports of children's number activities at home were predictive of children's performance on a standardized test of early mathematical ability.

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A series of studies was conducted which focused on US adults' beliefs about the relative importance of acquiring mathematical skills for preschool children and about how children acquire these skills. In Study 1, adults rated general information, reading and social skills as all being more important than mathematical skills. They also claimed that parents have the most influence on preschool children's learning regardless of content area. In Study 2, the parents of kindergarten children also rated reading, general information and social skills as all being more important than mathematics in preparing children for the first grade. The more important parents felt mathematics were, the more they reported engaging in a variety of mathematical-related activities with their children. However, the importance they placed on mathematics was not related to their child's actual mathematical performance. In summary, adults seem to value mathematics less than other skills in preparing young children to enter elementary school. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Key words: parents; beliefs; mathematicsMore and more attention has been paid to parental beliefs, attributions and attitudes about cognitive development and their possible influence in shaping the social context of the child (Stratton, 1988;Goodnow and Collins, 1990;Murphey, 1992;Miller, 1995). Parents' beliefs have been shown to be connected to their behaviors in the area of children's cognitive development (Miller, 1995). Recently Pelligrini and Stanic (1993) have claimed that children's mathematical development takes place in a niche, shaped not only by physical factors but also by social factors, such as the customs of child care and the psychology of caregivers. The possible influence of social factors on mathematical development is an especially important issue for psychologists in the US given the frequently reported poor performance of US children in mathematics, starting as early as the first grade (Bacon and Ichikawa, 1988;Stevenson et al., 1990 L. Musun-Miller and B. Blevins-Knabe 192 Ginsburg et al. (1992) examined several possible explanations for the poor performance of US children in mathematics -including differences in cognitive abilities, schooling practices and academic socialization practices. They argued that while school instruction plays an important role in children's mathematical achievement, it is not sufficient to explain the variability one finds in educational achievement and the feelings and attitudes, primarily negative, that children have toward the subject. They emphasize the importance of academic socialization by parents-which is turn is influenced by the beliefs, values and expectations that parents have toward their children's performance in school, as well as other factors, such as parents' own experiences with and feelings about mathematics. While they review several studies that focus on Asian and US parents' attitudes about academic success in general, they conclude that very little is known about the academic socialization of ...