“Early math is cognitively fundamental” said Doug Clements, Ph.D, during PBS News Hour’s feature on early math education in Boston Public Schools. The Building Blocks curriculum developed by Dr Clements and his Co-Researcher Julie Sarama, Ph.D, was heavily featured in the piece which showcased how critical math is to Pre-K students.
The success of this curriculum in Boston is due to Drs. Sarama and Clements’ work there (and in other cities) on scaling up successful approaches such as Building Blocks. Working with funding from the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Dept. of Education’s Institute of Educational Sciences, Dr. Sarama created a professional development plan that has lead to long lasting effects—both for children and for teachers.
Through early introduction to math, preschoolers using the Building Blocks Curriculum not only learn to count, and identify shapes, but also learn to talk about how to solve problems and explain their thinking in number and geometry.