Identifying parental math talk styles and relations to child talk and skills

Abstract

Prior studies on parental math talk often emphasize utterance frequency, with few distinguishing between utterance types (e.g., questions, statements, and confirmations). This study identified parental math talk styles (i.e., combinations of utterance types) and examined associations with children’s math and language performance. Participants were 76 mostly middle-income, White parents and their four-year-old children. Dyads’ conversations while looking at pictures were transcribed and coded for math content and children completed math and language assessments. Cluster analyses identified three parental math talk styles: Math Discussers privileged math questions and statements over other utterances, Math Commentators privileged math statements over other utterances, and Math Elicitors privileged math questions over other utterances. Math Discussers tended to be more likely than Math Commentators to have children who spoke more about math. Parental math styles did not relate to children’s math or language skills. Findings suggest parental math talk styles are promising to understand early math support.