Elementary Principals Critical to Early Learning

California Education Partners’ work with school districts has put in clear relief the critical role of principals in improving instruction. To foster instructional improvement, principals need to identify the right supports for teachers — including instructional materials, assessment instruments, and coaches – and to give meaningful feedback to teachers when they observe classrooms. These tasks require them to have a clear understanding of effective instruction.

The knowledge required is daunting when you consider how many subjects are taught and the wide age range of children in any given school. The task has become even more challenging in California since TK was added to elementary schools. Few elementary school principals have experience or expertise related to children as young as four years. A few have expressed concern that they are ill-equipped to support teachers’ efforts to improve their instruction in the first few grades, especially TK, because they lack expertise in early childhood education.

Ed Partners thus expanded its offering to principals by collaborating with Stanford’s Graduate School of Education to create a two-day institute on early math instruction. This past summer, District teams, which included elementary school principals and a district administrator, learned together about effective math instruction for young children. They also learned about building children’s self-confidence as math learners, selecting and using curriculum effectively, identifying and using assessments to make decisions and guide instruction, and engaging families to expand children’s math learning opportunities. Participants were given time to discuss these topics, consider the implications of what they learned for their schools, and make district and school-level plans for improving math instruction, PK through third grade.

A key concept in the institute was integrating math into play and playfulness into math. Principals know that play is important for young children. But children will not construct the number sequence, learn how to measure, or develop vocabulary to describe spatial position (all skills expected by the end of TK) through free play alone. Teachers also need to plan and implement playful activities with clear math goals—activities that are engaging and meaningful to young children. The institute offered many examples of how to integrate playfulness into teacher-guided math activities in the early grades.

Principals completed the institute feeling even more eager to start the new school year with a much clearer understanding of how to help their teachers support young children’s math learning.