Planting Seeds of Numeracy: Supporting Quantitative Literacy in Young Children

This paper aims to present how quantitative literacy was made a focus in a preschool classroom of three- and four-year-old children. With a focus on examining two areas of quantitative literacy, number knowledge and counting (Jordan, Kaplan, and Locuniak 2007) we seek to explore how educators, within an early childhood setting, used a project approach (Katz, Chard, and Kogan, 2014) and inquiry-based practices to build and extend upon the emerging competencies of the children. Utilizing narrative inquiry (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000), we draw from planning meeting notes, lesson plans, and lesson artifacts to construct a story that chronicles the journey of these teachers and children, attending to the ways in which both took up early learning standards related to numeracy and infused them into the classroom projects. Furthermore, we examine noticings of the teachers with regards to how the children expanded upon their abilities related to number knowledge and counting throughout the project and school year. As we reflect upon the journey, we note how project work served as a vessel for this knowledge to develop, as well as the need for these elements to be examined and planned for during the early years so that young children can demonstrate their learning in the clearest way possible.