At the NAEYC (National Association for the Education of Young Children) Conference in Washington DC, November 15, there were 20,000+ early childhood professionals and plenty of buzz about the importance of language development in very young children. Erikson Institute’s Jie Qi Chen is on NAEYC’s Governing Board. She and Mary Hynes Berry are handing out The Gift of Words: How Do Children Learn to Talk? at Erikson Institute’s 0 - 3 Math Project for teacher leaders to use in their sites.

Talk to Me Mama says that when mamas talk about classification (sorting the spoons and the forks) and seriation (sorting the blocks from the biggest to the smallest) they are preparing their children to think mathematically. It doesn’t take more time to set the table and put away the blocks; it takes more words.

<< Back to Past Conferences