Mathematics and Reading Develop Together in Young Children: Practical and Policy Considerations

Abstract

Early mathematics and reading skills underlie later school and career success. Yet, many children struggle to acquire these skills at the same rate as their peers. Often, these challenges are interrelated because both domains share basic underlying factors. Although research considers the development and instruction of these two domains together, practice and policy efforts lag behind, often treating these as completely independent domains. Here, we review the empirical basis for linking mathematics and reading: domain-specific and domain-general connections, neurobiological underpinnings, and shared genetic and environmental factors. Furthermore, we recommend enhanced national policies and practices that place mathematics alongside reading campaigns and integrate the two. Future work should also support empirically based instructional tools for both domains and develop links across instructional efforts.

Keywords

mathematics literacy reading learning disorders comorbidity policy preschool

Math and reading are highly linked: National policies/practices should increase focus on math and develop efforts that promote both together

Key Points

A growing body of research demonstrates that mathematics and reading develop together

National policies and practices have lagged behind in recognizing this link

Mathematics and reading researchers should work toward a more integrated view of skill development

Practices designed to support mathematics learning should receive greater national attention

New policies and practices targeting mathematics should be interwoven with existing programs that support reading

Early child care programs should strive to use curricula with demonstrated strong effects on mathematics and reading

Introduction

Mathematics and reading are two fundamental domains children must master for long-term academic and career success (Jordan, Kaplan, Ramineni, & Locuniak, 2009; La Paro & Pianta, 2000). Yet, results from the 2017 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) indicate that only 35% and 40% of fourth graders were performing at or above proficiency in reading and mathematics, respectively (McFarland et al., 2017). Although these performance rates reflect increased proficiency compared with prior years, the number of students struggling to meet basic expectations in these domains is still staggering. For decades, findings such as these have led to high levels of domain-specific research investigating the developmental processes that underlie the acquisition of these skills with the intent of developing and disseminating effective instructional techniques and materials. As a result, a relatively clear understanding has been established as to how early reading (National Early Literacy Panel, 2008; Whitehurst & Lonigan, 1998) and early numeracy (National Mathematics Advisory Panel [NMAP], 2008; National Research Council [NRC], 2009) each develop individually.

Unfortunately, research focused on these two fields has progressed in a relatively siloed fashion, with some exceptions. Historically, reading researchers and mathematics researchers often work separately, publish in separate journals, and attend separate conferences. Increasingly though, work from fields such as developmental and cognitive psychology (LeFevre, Fast et al., 2010), neuroscience (Dehaene, Piazza, Pinel, & Cohen, 2003), behavioral genetics (Knopik, Neiderhiser, DeFries, & Plomin, 2017), and education (Sarama, Lange, Clements, & Wolfe, 2012) indicates that the development of mathematics and reading skills are interwoven from early in development. In fact, a brief literature search in PsychInfo demonstrates dramatic increases in the published research linking these constructs. As of May 2018, nearly 3 times as many published articles appeared—since the year 2000 (n = 1,715) focused on the childhood years (birth-12 years of age) that included math (or mathematics) and reading in the abstract—than for the 18 years prior (1982-1999; n = 647). However, despite this increase in research, a parallel shift in policy or practice relating to program funding or instructional development has yet to occur. In this article, we (a) highlight recent research demonstrating these shared components across mathematics and reading development; (b) delineate potential explanations for domain-general linkages between these domains, including reasons for comorbidity of mathematics and reading difficulties; and (c) conclude with policy and practice recommendations to support mathematics and reading development individually and in concert.

The Overlapping Nature of Mathematics and Reading Skills

Across development, the relation between mathematics and reading scores is strong as early as preschool and kindergarten (McClelland et al., 2007) and remains so through elementary school (Hecht, Torgesen, Wagner, & Rashotte, 2001). Several possible reasons may contribute to the interrelatedness of these domains, including domain-specific links, shared domain-general factors, and underlying neurobiological connections.

Domain-Specific Relations Between Mathematics and Reading

The clearest connection between mathematics and reading is at the domain-specific level, where aspects of mathematics and reading depend on one another or share other commonalities. Notably, there are three primary early numeracy phases: informal numeracy skills (e.g., counting and comparison without formal numerals), numeral knowledge (e.g., understanding numeral names and their quantities), and formal numeracy (e.g., adding and subtracting using numerals; Purpura, Baroody, & Lonigan, 2013). There are also three primary early reading components: oral language (e.g., vocabulary and comprehension), print knowledge (e.g., knowledge of letter names and sounds), and phonological processing (e.g., blending and segmenting sounds; Whitehurst & Lonigan, 1998). Similarities across individual components of each domain may be one potential contributor to the interrelated nature of mathematics and reading development.

Of the three early reading skills, the first one, oral language ability, is the most consistently related to mathematics skills, particularly during the informal numeracy phase (LeFevre, Fast et al., 2010; Purpura, Hume, Sims, & Lonigan, 2011). Language skills enable children to represent and understand quantities (Miura & Okamoto, 2003). In fact, knowledge of certain language terms specific to mathematics (e.g., more, few) predicts mathematics development (Purpura & Logan, 2015). Moreover, engagement in high-quality mathematics activities at school (Sarama et al., 2012) or at home (Napoli & Purpura, 2018) is related to stronger language skills during the preschool years, likely due to the highly interactive nature of those activities.

Children’s print knowledge skills have also been linked to early mathematics development, particularly at the numeral knowledge phase (Austin, Blevins-Knabe, Ota, Rowe, & Lindauer, 2011; Purpura & Napoli, 2015). Children’s early reading is supported by their understanding of the function and organization of the printed letters that constitute the symbolic code (Pullen & Justice, 2003). Similarly, numeral knowledge is a necessary bridge between informal and formal numeracy skills (Purpura et al., 2013). Essentially, both mathematics and reading rely on understanding a symbolic code, whether composed of numbers or letters (Collins & Laski, 2018).

Beyond recognizing and understanding the function and organization of the symbolic codes and linguistic structures of mathematics and reading, more advanced early mathematics skills such as formal numeracy appear linked with children’s phonological processing skills (Fuchs et al., 2010; Hecht et al., 2001). Phonological processing skills (i.e., combining and separating sounds to make new words) relate to the acquisition of later reading skills (Fowler, 1991), as well as the number–word sequence (i.e., counting; Krajewski & Schneider, 2009) and computation skills (i.e., adding and subtracting; Hecht et al., 2001).

Domain-General Relations Between Mathematics and Reading

In addition to domain-specific connections, mathematics and reading activities depend on many of the same domain-general cognitive skills (Ashkenazi, Black, Abrams, Hoeft, & Menon, 2013). For instance, both reading and mathematics place significant demands on children’s working memory, attention regulation, and processing abilities, that is, how much they can keep in mind, how well they can focus their attention, and how accurately they can interpret and store information (Moll, Gobel, Gooch, Landerl, & Snowling, 2016). Cognitive skills such as executive functioning (control over one’s own processing) positively relate to both reading and mathematics skills (Blair & Razza, 2007).

Neurobiological Bases of Mathematics and Reading Abilities

The shared domain-specific and domain-general skills that support mathematics and reading development may be attributed to localization and activation across similar regions of the brain. Domain-general skills that support mathematics and reading abilities, such as attention regulation and working memory, are typically associated with activation of the prefrontal cortex (B. J. Casey, Giedd, & Thomas, 2000). In contrast, the domain-specific cognitive skills implicated during reading and mathematics typically activate more localized regions of the brain. Even among these domain-specific skills, however, similar patterns of activation emerge when children engage in certain mathematics tasks versus reading tasks. For example, language development is often associated with the temporoparietal cortex, which is also activated during the retrieval of arithmetic facts (Ashkenazi et al., 2013). The left fusiform gyrus, which supports the processing of orthographic input (i.e., written symbols; Binder, Medler, Westbury, Liebenthal, & Buchanan, 2006), has also been implicated in the processing of symbolic number knowledge (Arsalidou & Taylor, 2011). In addition, neuroimaging studies have shown that the left angular gyrus, commonly thought of as a key language-processing region, activates during the manipulation of numbers while solving arithmetic problems (Dehaene et al., 2003).

Comorbidity Between Mathematics and Reading Difficulties

Along with the strong connections between mathematics and reading at the domain-specific, domain-general, and neurobiological levels, growing evidence links difficulties in mathematics and reading. Research investigating learning disorders has long focused on identifying and supporting children with reading difficulties. Children with reading difficulties often experience difficulties with phonological processing and phonological awareness (Simmons & Singleton, 2008).

In contrast to the emphasis placed upon understanding the origins of reading difficulties, difficulties with mathematics are less well understood. Children with mathematics difficulties may experience a wide array of challenges with mathematics skills, including understanding the mechanism of counting (i.e., the sequence of number words, one-to-one correspondence) and use of subsequent counting strategies (i.e., counting-on to add two numbers), as well as retrieving information from long-term memory during problem-solving (Geary, 1994; Jordan, Hanich, & Kaplan, 2003). A smaller, but growing, body of evidence has begun to examine the links between reading and mathematics disorders and difficulties.

Mathematics and reading disorders have a high comorbidity (Jordan & Hanich, 2000). Notably, children who have reading difficulties in earlier grades also have a higher risk of experiencing mathematics difficulties in later grades (Jordan et al., 2003). Recent estimates of the comorbidity of mathematics and reading disorders report that, of the 7% of children who experience mathematics disorders, 17% to 66% experience a comorbid occurrence of reading disorders (Koepke & Miller, 2013). However, the reasons for comorbidity may differ across individuals. For instance, the two disorders may share an underlying influence (e.g., domain-general difficulties, genetic or environmental influences), the presence of one may result in the presence of the other (e.g., difficulties in language may lead to difficulties with word problems; Jordan, Kaplan, & Hanich, 2002), or they may have developed independently (Light & DeFries, 1995). Particularly important to understand are the potential shared underlying genetic etiology and environmental influences because these factors may explain a large portion of the overlap between reading and mathematics.

Underlying Genetic Etiology

Evidence for a genetic cause for reading disorders began to surface in the 1980s, when family studies suggested that reading disability runs in families, with siblings and parents of children with reading deficits performing significantly worse than siblings and parents of control children on reading assessments (DeFries, Vogler, & LaBuda, 1986). Recent large twin studies found similar results in the early school years in the United Kingdom (Kovas, Haworth, Dale, & Plomin, 2007) and the United States (Hensler, Schatschneider, Taylor, & Wagner, 2010). Similarly, studies investigating potential genetic influences on mathematics performance indicate that a significant amount of the individual variation found within mathematics skill distributions can be attributed to genetic influences (Thompson, Detterman, & Plomin, 1991). The first twin study of mathematics disability (Alarcón, DeFries, Light, & Pennington, 1997) suggested moderate genetic influence, a finding that has remained consistent in a recent meta-analysis of twin studies of mathematics deficits (Plomin & Kovas, 2005).

Although reading and mathematics performance have historically been considered as separate constructs, strong genetic correlations between reading and mathematics (Kovas et al., 2007) suggest that the same genetic influences contribute to both reading and mathematics performance (Knopik, Alarcón, & DeFries, 1997). Molecular genetic studies suggest that heritability estimates for reading (Gialluisi et al., 2014) and mathematics (Docherty et al., 2010) are due to multiple genes of small effect. Although less is known about the specific genes that might contribute to reported genetic correlations, recent findings indicate that at least one gene that is associated with reading deficits is also associated with mathematical performance, specifically mental calculations (Mascheretti et al., 2014).

Environmental Linkages Between Mathematics and Reading Skills

Several shared environmental influences may affect how mathematics and reading develop (or fail to develop) including parent–child educational engagement, teacher and school quality, and socioeconomic status effects (Gustafsson, Hansen, & Rosén, 2013). For example, family backgrounds, such as parental education, have been linked to the frequency of parent–child mathematics and reading activities in the home (LeFevre, Polyzoi, Skwarchuk, Fast, & Swinski, 2010), and parents who engage in more reading activities in the home also, generally, engage in more mathematics activities (Napoli & Purpura, 2018). Similar relations have also been found in the classroom (La Paro et al., 2009). When children are receiving less instruction in one domain, it is likely they are also receiving less instruction in the other. However, even though the frequency is related in both settings, there are significant differences in the magnitude of time focused on each domain. Typically, reading is focused on approximately twice as much in school and home than is mathematics (La Paro et al., 2009; Napoli & Purpura, 2018) even though both can be instructed together (Hojnoski, Columbo, & Polignano, 2014; Sarama et al., 2012). Furthermore, teachers often report being less comfortable with teaching mathematics than reading (Lee & Ginsburg, 2007). Yet, despite this knowledge, telling teachers or parents they need to do more is insufficient because of limited additional instruction time without crowding out other subjects (Bassok, Latham, & Rorem, 2016). What is needed is to make the best use of existing time by utilizing empirically supported curricula and instructional methods, as well as developing new methods that integrate mathematics and reading instruction effectively.

Effective early curricula have been developed separately for mathematics (Clements & Sarama, 2013) and reading (Lonigan, Clancy-Menchetti, Phillips, McDowell, & Farver, 2005). Similarly, multiple interventions and tutoring programs for older children have been implemented to promote skill development among children who experience difficulties in reading, mathematics, or both (Fuchs, Fuchs, & Prentice, 2004; Powell, Fuchs, Fuchs, Cirino, & Fletcher, 2009). Such programs have had varying degrees of success. However, although efforts have supported both typically developing children and children with mathematics and/or reading difficulties, limited intervention efforts have simultaneously fostered mathematics and reading development. The intertwined nature of both typical and atypical mathematics and reading development and the many shared genetic and neural influences indicate that future policies and practices should consider supporting both concurrently, as well as supporting enhanced research efforts to better understand these linkages.

Policy Implications: Encouraging Environments That Support Reading and Math

Research evidence should centrally drive our national education policies. Just as reading and mathematics researchers have long operated in separate spheres, so too the majority of our corresponding policies are specific to one domain. Mathematics and reading researchers need to forego their relatively isolated, two-pronged approach to acknowledge how findings from one field can inform the other. Currently, even though coordinated research on mathematics and reading together has tripled in the last two decades, it still only represents less than 10% of the overall amount of research on mathematics and reading. Such a reconceptualization of mathematics and reading research may support a more holistic understanding of early academic development, in addition to encouraging a much-needed shift among our national policies and practices supporting early reading and mathematics. Thus, policy and practice recommendations that mutually support reading and mathematics must emerge from more integrated research.

Three aspect of context inform our recommendations. First, far fewer policies support children’s early mathematics skills than those supporting children’s early reading skills. Second, existing policies and practices tend to either address how to support reading skills or mathematics skills. Establishing new policies on mathematics and integrating those that exist with national efforts to enhance language and literacy may encourage both parents and teachers to promote mathematics learning within the home and classroom, respectively. We focus here specifically on recommendations for supporting reading and mathematics from an early age, as early academic interventions are thought to produce the largest returns (Heckman, 2011). Finally, we end with a recommendation promoting the use of empirically supported instructional methods and curricula in schools to support both mathematics and reading acquisition.

Supporting Early Mathematics Development in the Home and Classroom

In 2009, the NRC published an extensive and much-needed report summarizing existing research on the development of children’s early mathematics skills. This article concluded with policy recommendations for fostering the positive development of young children’s mathematics skills. In this report, however, recommendations focus primarily on enhancing the quality of mathematics instruction in early child care centers and preschools—including more targeted curricula and instruction, reevaluations of mathematics standards, and professional development opportunities for early child care teachers (NRC, 2009). Although the authors note that many parents underestimate their children’s existing mathematics capabilities and are unaware of how to promote these skills at home, no explicit suggestions address these concerns. To bolster children’s mathematics development, we should encourage the use of mathematics skills in the home and the classroom—and just as early, with just as much emphasis, as we do reading.

Parents recognize the importance of participating in early reading activities with their children. In general, parents view supporting their child’s reading skills as more important than supporting their child’s mathematics skills (Drummond & Stipek, 2004). Their beliefs about the importance of these skills are reflected in the frequency of engagement in home learning activities (Weigel, Martin, & Bennett, 2006). Parents tend to report engaging in more reading activities with their child as compared with mathematics activities (Napoli & Purpura, 2018). Parents may feel more anxiety regarding early mathematics learning (Soni & Kumari, 2017) or may feel that the responsibility for teaching their child mathematics skills falls upon early classroom teachers. However, similarly to parents, teachers tend to emphasize the promotion of language and literacy skills over the promotion of early mathematics skills (Blevins- et al., 2000). Moreover, learning opportunities in preschool and kindergarten classrooms demonstrate a clear imbalance in classroom time spent on mathematics versus reading activities. Although language and literacy activities, such as practicing letter sounds and reading storybooks, are ubiquitous throughout the preschool day, mathematics activities were only offered between 18 and 24 min (La Paro et al., 2009; Piasta, Pelatti, & Miller, 2014). To encourage mathematics opportunities in the home and the classroom, national campaigns should (a) reflect the importance of promoting early mathematics skills and (b) present opportunities that simultaneously support both mathematics and reading.

National Educational Campaigns

Promoting early reading has long been an impetus for the development of national campaigns (e.g., Reach Out and Read [ROR], Read Right) and centers (e.g., the National Center on Improving Literacy) that support both research and policy efforts. Reading is considered integral to the overall health and well-being of all individuals, with the prevailing opinion being that we need to expose children to print and language early and often. In comparison, the promotion of early mathematics skills is discussed much more infrequently and often with regard to enhancing performance to increase global competitiveness (e.g., through job opportunities and workforce growth) in an increasingly technological world, as opposed to supporting overall quality of life (NMAP, 2008). As children from the United States consistently perform at lower levels on mathematics assessments than their peers (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development [OECD], 2016), these are valid national concerns. Nevertheless, these concerns situate the responsibility of improving and supporting mathematics skills within preschool, elementary, middle, and high schools—rather than informing how we can promote children’s skills from an early age by encouraging mathematics opportunities and activities in the home and in the preschool and kindergarten classrooms.

In the home, the ubiquity of storybook reading and other reading-related activities arose in part because of endorsement by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP). Although pediatricians’ traditional role is to provide treatment when children are sick, routine well-child visits also provide pediatricians the opportunity to provide guidance to parents regarding developmental milestones and developmentally appropriate activities that can promote learning. The AAP recommends that these well-child visits occur at regular and frequent intervals throughout the first few years of the child’s life. In 2013, 92% of children with health insurance received at least one wellness check-up during the year (Child Trends Databank, 2014).

Shared storybook reading has become an avenue through which pediatricians promote positive parent–child interactions as well as help parents support their children’s language development. The most well-known national campaign involving doctors and nurse practitioners has been ROR (for review see, Klass, Dreyer, & Mendelsohn, 2009). The interactions promoted through ROR serve as a context through which parents can support their child’s interest, respond positively and appropriately to their child’s initiatives, expose their child to new vocabulary, and engage in sustained conversations about characters and narratives. ROR has shown extensive benefits; parents involved in the program were more likely to read to their children regularly; children subsequently had improved language development, larger vocabularies, greater receptive and expressive language skills, and reduced media exposure (Council on Early Childhood et al., 2014).

No similar campaigns have been initiated around the development of early mathematics skills. Even if parents recognize that early mathematics is important to promote, they may not understand how to embed mathematics-focused talk and activities within their daily routines (Mazzocco, 2016). The pediatrician’s office may serve as one place to promote mathematics-related conversations surrounding measurement (e.g., a child’s growth in weight and height), and pediatricians can provide resources to parents about what early mathematics skills children possess and how to support the development of these innate skills through interactions. By integrating mathematics into national campaigns such as ROR, pediatricians could demonstrate to parents how they might foster mathematics learning within those interactions. For example, reading can be a vehicle by which to teach mathematics—particularly at the early ages (B. M. Casey, Kersh, & Young, 2004; Jennings, Jennings, Richey, & Dixon-Krauss, 1992)—and high-quality mathematics instruction and interactive home engagement may also support language acquisition (Napoli & Purpura, 2018; Sarama et al., 2012). In addition, by demonstrating how reading opportunities can become vehicles for mathematics learning, parents may become more confident in their abilities to present mathematics concepts and more likely to integrate mathematics activities within their daily routines.

Use of Effective Curricula and Interventions in Schools

Significant investment has gone into developing and evaluating effective interventions and curricula through research funding from federal agencies. Moreover, considerable efforts through the U.S. Department of Education have developed the What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) to provide evidence of what programs and policies are effective. Yet, often the best evidence is not used in curricular decisions in schools. For example, many federally funded preschools use curricula that are rated as having “no discernable effects” by the WWC even though numerous other curricula have strong effects on specific domains such as mathematics and reading (Jenkins & Duncan, 2017). This may be because these effective programs are domain-specific and utilize different training protocols and structures. Beyond promoting use of the effective curricula, supporting work that provides links across curricula or integrates them may be necessary for enhancing child outcomes more broadly.

Conclusion

Evidence clearly indicates that mathematics and reading are highly related during in their development as a function of multiple factors. Unfortunately, from a research and practice perspective, they often are treated as completely independent domains. Although recent research efforts have begun to integrate the domains, policy, and practice efforts have not caught up. To support young children’s successful development of these school readiness skills, we need to focus on enhancing our national policy efforts to support mathematics engagement in schools and homes and integrate these efforts with existing reading campaigns. Furthermore, there is a critical need to support the use of empirically supported domain-specific curricula and identify ways of integrating these curricula to more seamlessly implement them in schools.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

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Mathematics and Reading Develop Together in Young Children: Practical and Policy Considerations

Abstract

Keywords

Tweet

Key Points

Introduction

The Overlapping Nature of Mathematics and Reading Skills

Domain-Specific Relations Between Mathematics and Reading

Domain-General Relations Between Mathematics and Reading

Neurobiological Bases of Mathematics and Reading Abilities

Comorbidity Between Mathematics and Reading Difficulties

Underlying Genetic Etiology

Environmental Linkages Between Mathematics and Reading Skills

Policy Implications: Encouraging Environments That Support Reading and Math

Supporting Early Mathematics Development in the Home and Classroom

National Educational Campaigns

Use of Effective Curricula and Interventions in Schools

Conclusion

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

Funding

References