Benefits for Young Students
The Value of STEP
Young children are naturally curious about the world around them and develop early informal everyday mathematics skills that are broad and complex. When early childhood educators are able harness that interest and build on early informal understandings, there can be life-long benefits.
In fact, current research suggests that children's early mathematics skills are foundational and are strong predictors of later academic success. Research also suggests that high-quality mathematics instruction can not only support young children’s mathematics development, but also support important foundational skills like the ability to control their impulses, think flexibly to come up with many solutions to problems, and hold multiple pieces of information in their mind.
STEP can benefit young students by:
- Introducing them to mathematics concepts in fun and engaging ways.
- Setting them up with a strong foundation for later mathematics learning.
- Supporting important foundational executive function (EF) skills.
This really helped my students in their end of year (mathematics) assessments. They were very confident and felt like they could do it! - Participating STEP teacher
The STEP Program Includes:
- A variety of activities that introduce mathematics concepts in engaging ways.
- Supports that allow teachers to individualize mathematics instruction for students who have different needs.
- Information that helps teachers understand how to simultaneously support children’s foundational EF skills and mathematics learning.