Benefits of early math experiences add up While literacy is often seen as a cornerstone to...
Encouraging family engagement is one of the best strategies to improve children's achievement in school. Across fifty studies, researchers have found strong connections between family involvement and student learning.
At Math Shelf, we value parent involvement. That's why we developed Math Shelf Report Cards. These PreK & Kindergarten report cards inform parents of their child's math knowledge throughout the school year and provide parents with math activities to work on with their child at home.
Teachers can email parents Math Shelf Report Cards by visiting www.mathshelf.com/dashboard and selecting the For Parents link. Report cards measure children's math knowledge against state math standards for PreK and Kindergarten and are delivered to parents in the Fall, Winter, and Spring.
PreK Math Shelf Report Card
The image below shows a PreK student, Fredy Calderon's Spring Math Shelf Report Card. Fredy receives a rating from 1 to 3 on five key math areas. As you can see, Fredy met standards for Pre-Math Skills, Numbers to 10, Shapes & Spatial Relationships, and Measurement. He is approaching standard in Operations. This means Fredy needs additional practice adding and subtracting within 6, comparing numbers, and learning combinations of numbers that make 10. 
Notice that on Fredy's Math Shelf Report Card, there are blue links to lessons under the Operations and Challenging Math Lessons sections. By clicking the lesson links, Fredy's parents can work with him on these math skills. Below are images from lessons Fredy's parents can teach him at home.
Kindergarten Math Shelf Report Card
The Kindergarten Math Shelf Report Card measures more advanced math standards than the PreK report card. Below is student Daniel Martinez's Spring Math Shelf Report Card. As you can see, Daniel meets standard for Geometry, Measurement and Operations. He is approaching standard in Counting & Cardinality and Numbers in Base 10. Daniel needs additional practice counting to 100, understanding the number sequence to 100, and comparing numbers. He also needs to work on representing numbers using tens and units.
Daniel's Kindergarten Math Shelf Report Card includes links to lessons under the Counting & Cardinality and Numbers in Base 10 sections, because Daniel has not yet mastered these standards. By clicking the lesson links, Daniels's parents can work with him on these math skills at home.
Conclusions
Encouraging parents to be involved in their child's math education is important, but informing parents how their children are achieving and providing specific activities to improve their children's learning will help eliminate early math achievement gaps.
