Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

Correlational evidence indicates that both levels of and changes in young children’s mathematics achievement are highly predictive of children’s later school-related outcomes (Duncan, et al., 2007; Claessens & Engel, 2009). Further, recent research using nationally representative, longitudinal data finds that much of the mathematics instruction in kindergarten covers content that children already know, and that coverage of this basic content is negatively associated with student learning in mathematics (Engel, et al., 2013; Engel, et al., 2016). However, these results come from large-scale surveys, administered at a single point in time, that leave a number of important questions unanswered. For example, we know little about why kindergarten teachers teach the mathematics they do or what mathematics instruction looks like in kindergarten in terms of pedagogy and content delivery. Further, it is possible that surveys provide unreliable estimates of actual time spent and content covered in mathematics for kindergarteners. This paper provides results from an in-depth observational study of mathematics instruction in kindergarten classrooms during the 2015-2016 school year.

Using results from approximately 48 observations of mathematics instructional blocks and 30 full day observations of kindergarten instruction across 39 classrooms in 24 schools, we document how much time is spent on math lessons, what content is covered, and instructional quality in terms of pedagogy in a large urban district after adoption of the Common Core State Standards. Preliminary results indicate that teachers spend less time on mathematics instruction – under one hour per day – than is suggested by evidence from national surveys. At the same time, preliminary results support survey evidence indicating that mathematics instruction in kindergarten classrooms emphasizes basic mathematics content such as counting forward by ones, with substantially less time spent on more advanced content such as simple addition or subtraction.

In addition to evidence on time spent on mathematics overall and on specific math content, preliminary results suggest that while most math lessons that were observed were delivered clearly and with few mathematical errors on the part of the teacher, classroom management hindered mathematics instruction approximately 20 percent of the time. Further, teachers asked few open-ended questions when teaching math, indicating that the mathematics content that was delivered tended to be both basic and taught in a rote fashion. 

Additional analyses will explore the alignment between the enacted versus intended kindergarten mathematics curricula being used in this large urban district as well as the extent to which the intended and enacted curricula align with the CCSSM for kindergarten. Finally, using results from interviews conducted with all teachers who participated in the observational study, we will explore why kindergarten teachers report teaching the mathematics content that they cover and will be able to examine whether mathematics content coverage is associated with teachers’ own anxiety related to mathematics.