Increasing numbers of children attend early care and education programs. Several states are instituting universal preschool education. Various government agencies, federal and state, provide financial support for preschool programs designed to facilitate academic achievement, particularly in low- income children at increased risk of school failure. Conferences have been held recently on mathematical thinking in early childhood. These trends, along with recent international comparisons of mathematics achievement, have generated much recent interest in, and attention to, the learning of mathematics before elementary school at both the preschool and kindergarten levels. For example, the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) is revising its standards to include preschoolers in its Principles and Standards for School Mathematics. States are beginning to create mathematics standards and curriculum guidelines for preschool and kindergarten children.

As the NCTM and the states begin this new enterprise, there are many opportunities to create developmentally appropriate and challenging mathematics education for preschool and kindergarten children. At the same time, there is the danger of a veritable Babel of standards, some of which may be developmentally inappropriate for young children. A lack of consistency across various standards and guidelines may eventually result in incoherent and developmentally inappropriate curricula produced by major publishers. 

We therefore believe that early communication between, and coordination of efforts by, the relevant educational leaders and agencies is critical. We begin that communication and coordination by sponsoring a conference of just these parties. This conference was funded by the National Science Foundation and The ExxonMobil Foundation. The goals of the conference were to: 

• 1. initiate communication among the relevant parties (the following section lists these participants), 
• 2. introduce them to the latest research findings concerning early mathematical thinking and education 
• 3. present them with mathematicians' perspectives on the content and structure of the various mathematical domains, and synthesize all these resources to 
• 4. facilitate the creation of standards and curriculum materials for early childhood mathematics that are consistent and inclusive, rather than incoherent and competing, and therefore are both developmentally appropriate and challenging for young children.

The final report and recommendations, compiled in a book (click here for information), constitute a set of guidelines that will enable the all the standards writing groups to create consistent and complementary (and, as much as possible, common) standards that are based on current understanding of research, practice, and policy in early childhood mathematics education.