Dear Colleagues:

We believe that children who enjoy quality early learning experiences gain significant advantages for future achievement. One of the main priorities of our Education program is to inspire greater understanding of early math as a catalyst for school success. Through this grantmaking, we aim to increase the number of young children exposed to high-quality math instruction and activities at home, in early childhood education programs and schools, and in communities.

Math has traditionally received much less attention than literacy in early education, even though research shows that early math skills are a strong predictor of later academic success, not only in math but also in other domains.

We are therefore pleased to announce our Board’s approval of a $5 million grant to the DREME Network (Development and Research in Early Math Education). The DREME Network is a national network of leading scholars who engage in collaborative research and development to improve young children’s opportunities to learn math. The Network focuses on math from birth through age eight, with an emphasis on the preschool years. This grant brings the Foundation’s total commitment to the DREME Network to more than $8 million since the Network’s founding in 2014.

With the latest funding, the Network will engage in four projects focused on math and executive functions, parent and early caregiver engagement in math, preschool through elementary school coherence in mathematics instruction, and teacher-educator professional development. You can learn more about this work here.

Sincerely,

Kimberly Brenneman
Program Officer, Education
Heising-Simons Foundation