Frequency of Home Numeracy Activities Is Differentially Related to Basic Number Processing and Calculation Skills in Kindergartners.

Belde Mutaf Yıldız,Bert Reynvoet,Delphine Sasanguie,Bert De Smedt

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00340

Abstract

Home numeracy has been shown to play an important role in children’s mathematical performance. However, findings are inconsistent as to which home numeracy activities are related to which mathematical skills. The present study disentangled between various mathematical abilities that were previously masked by the use of composite scores of mathematical achievement. Our aim was to shed light on the specific associations between home numeracy and various mathematical abilities. The relationships between kindergartners’ home numeracy activities, their basic number processing and calculation skills were investigated. Participants were 128 kindergartners (Mage = 5.43 years, SD = 0.29, range: 4.88–6.02 years) and their parents. The children completed non-symbolic and symbolic comparison tasks, non-symbolic and symbolic number line estimation tasks, mapping tasks (enumeration and connecting), and two calculation tasks. Their parents completed a home numeracy questionnaire. Results indicated small but significant associations between formal home numeracy activities that involved more explicit teaching efforts (i.e., identifying numerals, counting) and children’s enumeration skills. There was no correlation between formal home numeracy activities and non-symbolic number processing. Informal home numeracy activities that involved more implicit teaching attempts, such as “playing games” and “using numbers in daily life,” were (weakly) correlated with calculation and symbolic number line estimation, respectively. The present findings suggest that disentangling between various basic number processing and calculation skills in children might unravel specific relations with both formal and informal home numeracy activities. This might explain earlier reported contradictory findings on the association between home numeracy and mathematical abilities.

Highlights

Cross-sectional and longitudinal research has demonstrated that individual differences in basic number processing skills are already observed before the start of primary education, and that they are related to/predictive for children’s mathematics achievement (De Smedt et al, 2009; Sasanguie et al, 2012b; Bonny and Lourenco, 2013; Libertus et al, 2013)
If the abovementioned hypotheses were confirmed, we further investigated whether the relation between home numeracy and calculation skills was mediated by symbolic number processing and mapping skills
Skewness and kurtosis values were within the acceptable limits for all the basic number processing and calculation tasks (Kline, 2011)

Summary

Introduction

Cross-sectional and longitudinal research has demonstrated that individual differences in basic number processing skills are already observed before the start of primary education, and that they are related to/predictive for children’s mathematics achievement (De Smedt et al, 2009; Sasanguie et al, 2012b; Bonny and Lourenco, 2013; Libertus et al, 2013). Children of parents who were guided to be involved in mathematical activities at home improved in standardized mathematics achievement tests (Sheldon and Epstein, 2005) It is, unclear which home numeracy activities are related to which specific types of basic number processing or calculation abilities, because most of the existing studies have used composite scores, such as TEMA-2 and -3 (e.g., BlevinsKnabe and Musun-Miller, 1996; Manolitsis et al, 2013), the KeyMath test (e.g., LeFevre et al, 2009, 2010), or the Utrecht Early Numeracy Test-Revised (e.g., Kleemans et al, 2012), to measure mathematical skills. We will describe how we investigated the relation between home numeracy, kindergarteners’ basic number processing and their calculation skills

Objectives

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion