Investigating the relationship between two home numeracy measures: A questionnaire and observations during Lego building and book reading

Home numeracy has been defined as the parent-child interactions that include experiences with numerical content in daily life settings. Previous studies have commonly operationalized home numeracy either via questionnaires or via observational methods. These studies have shown that both types of measures are positively related to variability in children’s mathematical skills. The current study investigated whether these distinctive data collection methods index the same aspect of home numeracy. The frequencies of home numeracy activities and parents’ opinions about their children’s mathematics education were assessed via a questionnaire. The amount of home numeracy talk was observed via two semistructured videotaped parent-child activity sessions (Lego building and book reading). Children’s mathematical skills were examined with two calculation subtests. We observed that parents’ reports and number of observed numeracy interactions were not related to each other. Interestingly, parents’ reports of numeracy activities were positively related to children’s calculation abilities, whereas the observed home numeracy talk was negatively related to children’s calculation abilities. These results indicate that these two methods tap on different aspects of home numeracy.status: accepte