Engaging Caregivers of Students With Disabilities in Home Math Activities

Mathematical success for all children is an important national goal in the United States (National Math Advisory Panel, 2008). It is essential for educators and caregivers, such as parents, grandparents, or others directly involved in a child’s home life, to work together to support children’s success in math. The home environment is critical to support the development of children’s math skills (Nelson et al., 2024; Niklas et al., 2016). Although time spent on engaging children in math activities at home positively correlates to their math achievement (Keating et al., 2022; Ramani & Siegler, 2008), home interventions do not have to be intensive to be effective (Nelson et al., 2024; Niklas et al., 2016). For example, Berkowitz and colleagues (2015) found that when caregivers interacted with their child about math story problems as little as once per week, there was a significant improvement in their child’s math achievement by the end of the school year. This shows that caregivers do not need to spend a lot of time with children on math for children to benefit from it. When caregivers are provided with support, recommendations, or materials for math learning in the home, there is often a subsequent increase in the frequency with which children and caregivers engage in home-based math activities (Gilmore et al., 2022; Niklas et al., 2016, 2018). Furthermore, when caregivers are provided with information on supporting children’s math skills at home, it increases their own math knowledge (Eason et al., 2022) and self-efficacy for teaching young children about math (Gilmore et al., 2022). These caregivers’ skills may also be related to improved child math outcomes (Eason et al., 2022).