Abstract
Adults’ mathematical language, or "math talk," has been shown to play a critical role in early childhood numeracy development and long-term mathematical achievement. The present study examined the impact of the ENRICH+ oral language enrichment programme on educator-child math talk interactions and children's early numeracy skills in English-medium Early Childhood Education (ECE) centres across Aotearoa New Zealand. As a sub-study of the Kia Tīmata Pai (KTP) project, this research focused on a subset of 24 BestStart ECE centres, with 12 centres receiving the ENRICH+ intervention and 12 serving as active controls. Video recordings of naturally occurring educator-child interactions during book reading were collected at two timepoints, over one year apart, and subsequently transcribed and coded for math talk instances. Children's numeracy outcomes were assessed using an oral counting task at the final timepoint.
The results indicated that children in the ENRICH+ condition outperformed those in the control group on the oral counting task, suggesting that the intervention had a positive effect on early counting skills. However, the overall frequency of math talk utterances and instances did not differ significantly between conditions, with the exception of sorting/classifying talk, which showed both a significant increase over time and a higher rate per minute in the ENRICH+ centres. These findings suggested that while structured language interventions during book-reading could enhance early numeracy outcomes, they did not independently drive broad increases in educator-child mathematical discourse during Book Time. Future research on this project should assess whether educator-child math talk varies across other routines within the 24 centres assessed.
The present study contributes to the field of early numeracy development by highlighting the need for explicit educator training and targeted strategies to enhance the integration of math talk across multiple mathematical domains. The findings have implications for early childhood curriculum design, professional development, and intervention scalability, reinforcing the importance of structured, evidence-based approaches to supporting mathematical discourse in early learning settings. Future research should explore longitudinal outcomes beyond early childhood, examine additional numeracy and mathematical concepts, and investigate culturally responsive approaches to math talk, particularly within bilingual and bicultural educational contexts in Aotearoa New Zealand.