Influence of Parental Involvement and Parenting Styles on Number Readiness of Preschool Children | Original Article

ABSTRACT:

The early years of a child's life are not only the most vulnerable but also the most significant for determining potential for lifelong learning and development (Kaul, 2004). Hence the need of sending children to preschool cannot be undermined. Just as the young children come in preschool having learned about the language they speak, so do they come to school with a broad background of experience in mathematical learning. The children are familiar with numbers because they have seen these in and around their environment. They are also aware of a number of pre number concepts informally. This includes identification of one digit and two digit numbers, identifying simple geometrical shapes and matching, sorting and classification. They need to be provided opportunities to formalize them and relate them with formal mathematical operations (Soni, 2005). Parents play an important role in developing the learning ability of the children especially, parental involvement and parenting style form major factors that influence the achievement level of children at all stages (Desforges & Abouchaar, 2003). Parental involvement refers to parents being involved in their children's education through communication with teachers, helping with homework, attending school functions or being directly involved in the school itself. Parenting style is basically divided into authoritarian (telling children exactly what to do), permissive (allowing their children to do whatever they wish), and authoritative (providing rules and guidance without being overbearing) styles. The present paper aims to find the influence of parental involvement and parenting style on the number readiness of preschool children. This particular study was conducted on 543 preschoolers who were supposed to enter Class I in the next academic year. The paper focuses on the following objectives: (a) to study the extent of parental involvement, (b) to study the extent of number readiness among preschool children, (c) to study the effect of parental involvement on the number readiness of preschool children, (d) to study the level of number readiness of preschool children having parents displaying different parenting styles. The tools employed in the study are (a) Parental Involvement Scale (b) Bracken School Readiness Assessment (c) Parenting Styles and Dimensions Questionnaire. The major findings of the study are a) most of the parents are highly involved with the children in the development of their number readiness; b) most of the preschool children have developed above average number readiness; c) there is a significant difference in the number readiness of preschool children belonging to parents exhibiting high, average and low parental involvement and 4) there is no significant difference in the number readiness of preschool children exposed to different parenting styles.