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How Informal Learning Activities Can Promote Children’s Numerical Knowledge - Oxford Handbooks Oxford Handbooks Online How Informal Learning Activities Can Promote Children’s Numerical Knowledge Geetha B. Ramani and Robert S. Siegler Subject: Psychology, Cognitive Psychology, Educational Psychology, Developmental Psychology Online Publication Date: Mar 2014 DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199642342.013.012 Abstract and Keywords Before children begin school, there is a wide range of individual differences in children’s early numerical knowledge. Theoretical and empirical work from the sociocultural perspective suggests that children’s experiences in the early home environment and with informal number activities can contribute to these differences. This article draws from this work to hypothesize that differences in the home explain, in part, why the numerical knowledge of children from low-income backgrounds trails behind that of peers from middle-class backgrounds. By integrating sociocultural perspectives with a theoretical analysis of children’s mental number line, the authors created an informal learning activity to serve as an intervention to promote young children’s numerical knowledge. Our studies have shown that playing a simple number board game can promote the numerical knowledge of young children from low-income backgrounds. The authors discuss how informal learning activities can play a critical role in the development of children’s early maths skills. Keywords: maths, preschoolers, informal learning activities, interventions, board games Acknowledgments We would like to thank the Institute of Educational Sciences, which supported this research, Grants R305A080013 and R305H050035, and the Teresa Heinz Chair at Carnegie Mellon University. Providing children with a strong foundation of mathematical knowledge is critical for suc