story by Susan Fishman
Words matter. And when it comes to learning math, they matter more than you might think.
This is what Assistant Professor Yemimah King discovered in her research on how parents’ word usage is related to children’s early academic skills. King became interested in the topic after learning about how preschoolers' knowledge of math vocabulary supports their math learning, and after collaborating to develop storybooks rich in math vocabulary during her Ph.D. program at Purdue University.
“I enjoyed exploring different ways to introduce math vocabulary in the ‘Little Elephants’ Big Adventures’ book series developed by the Purdue Early Achievement Research Labs, and in turn became interested in how parents might introduce this vocabulary in daily conversations,” she explains. “I was particularly interested in the words that parents use to describe and compare quantity (e.g., most, a lot, equal), outside of the use of number words (e.g., one, two, three). Additionally, I was interested in how parents’ word usage was related to preschoolers' early academic skills.”
To find out, King and her colleagues conducted a study, published in Child Development, in which they observed parent-child play sessions to identify the types of words parents used. They focused on the factor structure of parents' talk during various numeracy-related activities to determine if parents' general talk, number talk and mathematical language use are distinct factors related to specific academic skills. Activities included engaging with a wordless storybook about baking, playing a sharing game and completing a number matching puzzle.
One key finding was that parents of preschoolers used a variety of words or phrases, outside of number words, to discuss quantity. These quantitative terms were found to be distinct from number words because they were used to provide an imprecise label for a quantity (e.g., some), compare quantities (e.g., most) or request the description of a quantity (e.g., how many). In contrast, parents used number words to count or provide a precise label for a quantity.
Another key finding was that while engaging in math-relevant play activities, parents of children with higher numeracy performance (e.g., counting, number identification, simple addition) used higher levels of general vocabulary during discussions. In comparison, parents of children with lower numeracy performance used higher levels of quantitative terms.
“This suggests that, in the moment, parents may tailor word usage to support children's needs, such that children with lower numeracy skills may have been exposed to more quantitative terms to support them through the math-focused tasks,” notes King.
King says these findings teach us that parents’ quantitative terms play a unique role that also complements their number word use.
“Parents in this study used 38 different quantitative terms, which highlighted opportunities for preschoolers to be exposed to rich language used to discuss math concepts,” she explains. “Additionally, the findings may support early childhood educators in identifying math vocabulary that children may learn at home that can be expanded and extended in the classroom.”
The results also reveal important next steps in this area of research, says King.
“Future research should focus on understanding the link between early exposure to quantitative terms and children's later math development, which this study could not determine because families were not followed over time.”
About the Researcher
Yemimah King
Department of Early Childhood and Elementary Education
Yemimah King is an assistant professor in the College of Education & Human Development’s Department of Early Childhood and Elementary Education. She is also an affiliate faculty with the Center for Research on the Challenges of Acquiring Language and Literacy at Georgia State. She earned her Ph.D. in Human Development and Family Studies at Purdue University in 2022 and her bachelor’s degree in psychology at Georgia State. Her research focuses on enriching parent-child interactions, learning environments and educational activity engagement to support early language and math development in young children who may experience educational opportunity gaps. She has published in various journals, including the Early Childhood Research Quarterly, Frontiers in Psychology and Journal of Experimental Child Psychology.
Citation
King, Y. A., Eason, S. H., Duncan, R. J., Borovsky, A. and Purpura, D. J. (2025). “The Factor Structure of Parents’ Math-Related Talk and Its Relation to Children’s Early Academic Skills.” Child Development, 96, 1409-1423. https://doi.org/10.1111/cdev.14244.