L'acquisition des prealables cognitifs dans le domaine quantitatif chez les enfants de milieu socioeconomiquement faible: Implication parentale

Contemporary research in cognitive development suggests a lack of family and school support for children's numerical skill development during the preschool years, especially in low-income neighbourhoods. As a result, many children do not develop the intuitive representation of numbers that is essential for success in first-grade.; The main goal of this thesis is to evaluate the short-term and the medium-term effects of the value added of a parent training component integrated within two classroom-based preschool enrichment programs designed to enhance children's requisite knowledge for formal learning of arithmetic. Specifically, a parent training component was added to an enrichment program in kindergarten (Rightstart) that focused upon the acquisition of preliminary concepts of arithmetic in children. In a second project, we developed and introduced a parent training component to a pre-arithmetic enrichment program (Bon Depart) to stimulate the cognitive precursors of mathematics in junior kindergarten. Children's number knowledge was tested before the administration of the enrichment programs, immediately following their application, and at the beginning of formal schooling.; For both programs, one in kindergarten and the other in junior kindergarten, the short-term results suggest that adding parental support to stimulate the cognitive precursors to first-grade arithmetic/mathematics has a positive influence on number line knowledge. Children, having followed the school-based program and whose parents received training, developed a more extensive knowledge of numbers than those children having followed the school-based program exclusively. However, for both programs, we observed inconclusive results when comparing children having received the parent training component of the program with those whose parents consented but never attended the parent training component.; The results observed over the medium-term are inconclusive with respect to children's number knowledge for children having followed the school-based program with parental training compared with children having benefited only from the school-based program (without parental involvement). In fact, three years after its application, results revealed no apparent value added for the parent component to the Rightstart kindergarten program. Similarly, we observed no significant value added two years after the pre-arithmetic program that had been applied in junior kindergarten (Bon Depart).; These results seem to indicate that the addition of a parental component to the preventive programs within the preschool framework does not undoubtedly optimize the chances of the children of low-income families to benefit more from these interventions over the short- and medium-term. It is however important to keep in mind that the results are discussed in the context of the predictive variables chosen for this study. Other factors not measured and correlated with parental involvement could have influenced children's performance.; The conclusions of the three studies emphasize the importance of intensifying the teaching support beyond the preschool years if we want to give poor children an equal opportunity in education, and the knowledge they need for later formal learning of mathematics. These results also suggest the need for more longitudinal studies that consider the potential impact of the parental involvement in other spheres of child development.