Six Democratic governors have submitted a petition urging the American Academy of Pediatrics and the U.S. Surgeon General’s office to develop guidance recommending regular numeracy-enriching play for young children. The petition, signed on July 23 by governors from Rhode Island, Maryland, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, and North Carolina, calls for national recommendations comparable to existing guidance on early literacy development.
The American Academy of Pediatrics has issued prominent guidance in 2014 and 2024 encouraging parents to read, talk, and sing with children from birth to support literacy. The governors’ petition seeks similarly explicit recommendations specifying a weekly amount of time families should dedicate to numeracy-based activities. The effort is being coordinated by the Collaborative for Student Success, a nonprofit advocacy organization, as part of its broader campaign to improve math achievement.
Research indicates that early mathematical skills correlate with later academic success and that regular exposure to numbers at home can enhance children’s mathematical development. A 2020 study found that preschoolers whose parents provided frequent opportunities for simple math problems and games at home demonstrated superior arithmetic growth by kindergarten compared to peers with less math-focused home environments.
Numeracy play can take various forms, including sorting and counting toys, adding and subtracting objects, measuring ingredients while cooking, or playing board games and card games that involve numbers. The petition’s accompanying guidance specifies that effective math games should encourage children to count, compare quantities, match and sort items, identify patterns, and engage in sequential thinking. While reading to children has become widely internalized as a parental practice through public messaging campaigns, experts suggest that parents’ own math anxiety may make them less deliberate about establishing comparable numeracy routines, potentially limiting children’s early mathematical development.
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