Early-Years Swimming: Creating Opportunities for Adding Mathematical Capital to Under 5s
View/ Open
Author(s)
Jorgensen, Robyn
Griffith University Author(s)
Year published
2013
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
Most Australians live near a large body of water and with swimming being a strong part of the national culture, formal swimming in the years prior to schooling is undertaken by a significant part of the Australian community. Drawing on survey data from over 2000 parents, this paper explores the possibility of early-years swimming to add mathematical capital to young children. Using developmental milestones as the basis of the survey, it was found that parents reported significantly earlier achievement on many of these milestones that were related to mathematics. Such data suggest that this environment may offer enhanced ...
View more >Most Australians live near a large body of water and with swimming being a strong part of the national culture, formal swimming in the years prior to schooling is undertaken by a significant part of the Australian community. Drawing on survey data from over 2000 parents, this paper explores the possibility of early-years swimming to add mathematical capital to young children. Using developmental milestones as the basis of the survey, it was found that parents reported significantly earlier achievement on many of these milestones that were related to mathematics. Such data suggest that this environment may offer enhanced opportunities for learning skills that help transition young children into formal schooling. Such findings have profound implications for equity, particularly for children from backgrounds who are unable to access swimming and who would benefit most in the preparation for schooling.
View less >
View more >Most Australians live near a large body of water and with swimming being a strong part of the national culture, formal swimming in the years prior to schooling is undertaken by a significant part of the Australian community. Drawing on survey data from over 2000 parents, this paper explores the possibility of early-years swimming to add mathematical capital to young children. Using developmental milestones as the basis of the survey, it was found that parents reported significantly earlier achievement on many of these milestones that were related to mathematics. Such data suggest that this environment may offer enhanced opportunities for learning skills that help transition young children into formal schooling. Such findings have profound implications for equity, particularly for children from backgrounds who are unable to access swimming and who would benefit most in the preparation for schooling.
View less >
Conference Title
Proceedings of the 36th annual conference of the Mathematics Education Research Group of Australasia
Copyright Statement
© 2013 MERGA. The attached file is posted here with permission of the copyright owner for your personal use only. No further distribution permitted. For information about this conference please refer to the publisher’s website or contact the author.
Subject
Mathematics and Numeracy Curriculum and Pedagogy