Critique article - math for the young child or any math critique article that deals with children

Critique Article – “ The Big Math for Little Kids Early Childhood Mathematics Program” The teaching of Mathematics to the young children requires specific care and attention as the approach adopted in early teaching has a great value considering the general attitude the child develops to the subject throughout its life. Among the many articles which emphasizes on this special requirement in the teaching of Mathematics to young children, the article “ The Big Math for Little Kids Early Childhood Mathematics Program” by Robert Balfanz, Herbert P. Ginsburg, and Carole Greenes has a central value. It is specifically because the authors throughout the article deal with research based principles for the design of an effective program for the teaching of Mathematics to little kids. There is immense value to the content of the article as it summarizes the results of the four year long researches on developing the ‘ Big Math for Little Kids’ pre-kindergarten and kindergarten mathematics program. The authors present ‘ Big Math for Little Kids’ as the product of their effort from 1998 to 2002, to develop “ a research-based and developmentally appropriate early childhood mathematics program for all pre-kindergarten and kindergarten children.” (Balfanz, Robert. et al, 2003, p. 264). The program consists of an all-inclusive set of sequenced learning activities and the lesson units of this program includes numbers, shapes, patterns and logic, measurement, operations on numbers, and spatial relations. The program, as the authors claim, combines mathematics into the daily routines and other early learning areas of the children such as music, art, movement, reading, writing, and science. It also presents mathematical symbols and words in the most cautious and meaningful ways aiming at the children’s lighthearted but purposeful learning of Mathematics. In their article, the authors not only provide the theoretical and research based evidences to the effectiveness of the program, but more significantly the evidences of the practical success of the ‘ Big Math for Little Kids’ from their observed results.
After introducing the program the ‘ Big Math for Little Kids’ in detail, the authors deal with its research base which includes psychological and educational research as well as the design principles. They maintain that every child is capable of learning mathematics at a young age based on their researches. According to the authors, it is important to provide the children with adult guidance along with opportunity for play and they also specify that low-income children should be given a motivating and challenging preschool and kindergarten mathematics learning environment. Their other major recommendations specify that curriculum push-down should not be a constraint in early childhood mathematics and young children require a developmentally appropriate and enjoyable mathematics education. The article is definite about the capacity of young children in dealing with a comprehensive mathematics curriculum.
In the next sections of the article, the authors present the stages of developing and field-testing ‘ Big Math for Little Kids’ in which the precise process of the construction of the program is elaborated. In the next section of the article, ‘ Big Math for Little Kids at Work’, the authors provide evidences of the success of the program based on their researches. They also extensively present the several lessons they learned through the researches and the development of the program and these lessons are valuable to every person engaged in the area. The authors conclude the article with a very significant closing thought. Accordingly, young children are capable of truly remarkable applications of mathematics. However, they are given very limited opportunities to partake in great mathematical learning environments. Therefore, as the article declares “ It is time for that to change.”
References
Balfanz, Robert. et al. (2003). “ The Big Math for Little Kids Early Childhood Mathematics Program.” Teaching Children Mathematics. Vol. 9. Issue. 5. p. 264.