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Mathematical language comprehension is a term used to refer to children’s understanding of the spatial (such as “next to” and “above”) and quantitative (such as “fewest” and “more”) relationships between two or more objects. We know that parental math talk, or the mathematical language a parent/carer uses during interactions with their children, can improve children’s mathematical language comprehension. We also know that children’s mathematical language comprehension is related to their numeracy performance between 3 and 5 years old. However, we do not know whether children’s understanding of spatial or quantitative words has a larger contribution to their numeracy performance. This is important to study because it will help psychologists to make interventions that can improve children’s numeracy skills at home. For this reason, our study looked into whether parental math talk can lead to better numeracy performance, because it increases children’s spatial language comprehension skills. Our study also looked into whether this link had a larger impact on male or female children aged between 3 and 5 years old. We asked headteachers and nursery managers to forward an email to parents/carers of children who attend their primary school or nursery. The email contained information about the study and a link to the online questionnaire. We also posted a QR code on social media platforms that parents/carers could scan to access the questionnaire. Once parents/carers had read the electronic participant information sheet and had agreed to take part, they were asked for information about their child’s sex and age in years. The main study asked parents/carers questions about how often they use math talk with their child (10 questions), as well as about their child’s spatial language comprehension (28 questions) and numeracy performance (7 questions). Our sample included 370 parents/carers of children aged 3 to 5 years old who had no diagnosis of a developmental disorder. Of these, 180 children were male and 190 children were female. We found that parents/carers who used more parental math talk were more likely to have children with better numeracy performance than children who had heard less parental math talk. We also found that parents/carers who used more parental math talk were more likely to have children with better spatial language comprehension, and importantly, these children were more likely to have better numeracy performance than those with lower spatial language comprehension. This means that spatial language comprehension is one reason for how parental math talk is linked to numeracy performance in children aged 3 to 5 years old. Surprisingly, parental math talk had a larger impact on spatial language comprehension for children who were male than female. Our findings therefore build on earlier studies by showing that parental math talk may improve a specific part of children’s mathematical language comprehension: spatial language comprehension. This, in turn, may improve children’s numeracy performance between 3 and 5 years old. These findings provide important recommendations for educational psychologists who want to come up with ways to improve young children’s numeracy skills at home. For example, they could focus on increasing how much parents/carers use mathematical language during conversations with their children as this might help to improve their spatial language and numeracy skills. This is important as children with poor numeracy skills at the beginning of primary school are more likely to have poor numeracy skills in secondary school.

Given our significant findings, the current research has shed light on one mechanism that underlies the association between parental math talk and numeracy performance between 3 and 5 years old: children’s spatial language comprehension. This has important benefits for educational psychologists, who may consider spatial language comprehension as a potential mechanism to be targeted in early home-based numeracy interventions. These interventions may be particularly beneficial for females, who are often exposed to less parental math talk, and are therefore at risk of lower numeracy performance than males in primary and secondary school. Due to the challenges of engaging in conversational math talk throughout the school day, teachers and nursery practitioners could inform parents/carers about the longitudinal impact of one-to-one math talk on children’s numeracy performance, and advise them on the direct and indirect numeracy activities that they could offer to their child within the home environment to meet their particular needs. This will support the development of foundational numeracy skills that children will continue to build on throughout their formal education. Although further research is necessary, parents/carers of older children who are below the expected level in numeracy may also benefit from an increased exposure to parental math talk at home, by supporting them in reaching their academic targets. Longitudinal research could also identify those at risk of poor numeracy performance and whether these interventions are effective as a preventative. It is possible that these changes will have a lasting societal impact by reducing the underrepresentation of females in STEM courses and careers.