Statistics in Preschool

Statistics education has become established in the elementary school curriculum. Because the principles of statistics underlie many basic learning concepts, it is not surprising to discover statistics principles in the preschool curriculum as well. This article describes how statistical tools and co...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The American statistician 2001-11, Vol.55 (4), p.332-336
Main Authors: Hilton, Sterling C, Grimshaw, Scott D, Anderson, Genan T
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Applications
Biology, psychology, social sciences
Boats
Child development
Childhood
Children
Children & youth
College students
Core curriculum
Data collection
Early childhood development
Early childhood education
Elementary school students
Exact sciences and technology
Experiments
Families & family life
Laboratories
Learning
Literacy
Mathematics
Mathematics education
Pets
Polls & surveys
Preschool children
Preschool curricula
Preschool education
Probability and statistics
Quantitative literacy
School environment
Sciences and techniques of general use
Scientific method
Statistics
Surveys
Teacher's Corner
Teachers
University students
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Summary:Statistics education has become established in the elementary school curriculum. Because the principles of statistics underlie many basic learning concepts, it is not surprising to discover statistics principles in the preschool curriculum as well. This article describes how statistical tools and concepts are included in the Brigham Young University (BYU) Child and Family Studies Laboratory preschool curriculum. At BYU, children study topics as long as they are interested, and teachers use projects to create a rich learning environment. This article describes how statistical projects-such as the "Question of the Day," survey work, and experiments-are used to teach young children to pose questions, make operational definitions, summarize data, understand variation, gather data, construct bar charts, and apply the scientific method. BYU teachers also use statistical projects to teach many other important preschool skills.
ISSN:0003-1305
1537-2731
DOI:10.1198/000313001753272303