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Research has determined that “children’s mathematics ability at the beginning of Kindergarten is a strong predictor of later academic success, even stronger than their early reading ability” (Canadian Child Care Federation and Canadian Language and Literacy Research Network, 2010). Evidence like this is one of the reasons READ Saskatoon developed 1, 2 Buckle My Shoe—an early numeracy program—in 2019. Two years later, the program is now available to other organizations in the province. We asked recent trainee Victoria Martin to share a few things about it.

Why did you take the 1,2 Buckle My Shoe Facilitator Training?

I’m looking to bridge the gap in programming between our public library system, our playschool, and our school. I was looking for programming that would involve all the different groups together and that’s why READ Saskatoon’s early numeracy program was of interest to me.

What did you learn?

The main thing was that people might be overthinking numeracy skills for little ones. I don’t have my own kids, and I haven’t been trained in education, but I’m learning as I go, and I’m noticing that a lot of the stuff families already do at home makes use of numeracy skills, they just don’t always recognize it. So, parents have all the tools to do these things already, but they can get lost in translation. But if you go to a program and the facilitator says, “If you’re at home doing some baking and you call your kid over and you measure ingredients together, that’s numeracy skills development!” You can do that at home, and that’s what math is for a preschooler.  

How will you use it in your job going forward?

I’d like to do sessions for our playschool group as they look ahead to kindergarten. If we can help create a culture of learning with our families, as well as comfort in the school space, then maybe that first day of kindergarten won’t be so scary. My hope is to get the teachers involved so that when the kids get to school, they will see some familiar faces.

What was your favourite counting rhyme as a child?

Probably The Ants Go Marching. We would make up lots of rhymes and restyle some of it to match what we were doing at the time and that was always fun.

For more information about our 1, 2 Buckle My Shoe Facilitator Training, email [email protected].