Bedtime Books and coolmath

I found the Berkowitz study to be interesting mainly because I find it hard that they were able to find “math” books that did not also have an effect on children’s literacy. Separating the two seems impossible to me. To Berkowitz’s point though that mathematical skills lag behind literacy due to lack of parent interaction over the subject, I tend to agree. A close friend and former room mate of mine here at Stanford, who is a brilliant mathematician, had a father who was a physicist . His dad would pay him to read “math books”, and so as a kid he read alot of math books.

I also saw this is in my own life. My dad was also an engineer and that fact allowed him to work with me on math homework in a way that my mom never would. She would get stressed out when I asked her questions, I can’t imagine how stressful and frustrating math would have been for me had my dad not been willing to engage with me and help me through my issues.