Eric.ed.gov – Difficulties of Early Childhood Education Teachers’ in Mathematics Activities

In this study, it was aimed to identify the difficulties experienced by early childhood education teachers in planning, implementation and evaluation processes of in-class and out-of-class mathematics activities and parent involvement in such activities. The answers of the teachers to the questions on the interview form were recorded via a voice recorder and transcribed into written form by the researcher. In the direction of the findings, those who think that they have some difficulty in planning the in-class mathematics activities showed the causes as the idea of difficulty of mathematics, the lack of professional experience, failure to know the child well, the difficulties in adaptation, the lack of budget and resources. The difficulties in implementing inclass math activities were indicated as children’s mobility, distraction, having different levels of readiness and learning at different speed, having a multitude of children with special needs in the class and the lack of assistant staff. The reasons like children’s inability to write numbers, difficulties in counting on fingers, identifying numbers, subtracting, etc. were also reported as difficulties. Teachers mentioned the difficulties in planning out-of-class math activities, such as quick distraction of children’s attention, transportation problems, noisy places, physical conditions, the absence of independent garden. The difficulties experienced in the implication process of out-of-class math activities were distraction, safety of children, absence of auxiliary personnel, and inadequacies in physical conditions.