Narrowing the Early Mathematics Gap: A Play-Based Intervention to Promote Low-Income Preschoolers' Number Skills.

Nicole R Scalise,Geetha B Ramani,Emily N Daubert

doi:10.5964/jnc.v3i3.72

Nicole R Scalise, Geetha B Ramani + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.5964/jnc.v3i3.72

Copy DOI

Abstract

Preschoolers from low-income households lag behind preschoolers from middle-income households on numerical skills that underlie later mathematics achievement. However, it is unknown whether these gaps exist on parallel measures of symbolic and non-symbolic numerical skills. Experiment 1 indicated preschoolers from low-income backgrounds were less accurate than peers from middle-income backgrounds on a measure of symbolic magnitude comparison, but they performed equivalently on a measure of non-symbolic magnitude comparison. This suggests activities linking non-symbolic and symbolic number representations may be used to support children's numerical knowledge. Experiment 2 randomly assigned low-income preschoolers (M age = 4.7 years) to play either a numerical magnitude comparison or a numerical matching card game across four 15 min sessions over a 3-week period. The magnitude comparison card game led to significant improvements in participants' symbolic magnitude comparison skills in an immediate posttest assessment. Following the intervention, low-income participants performed equivalently to an age- and gender-matched sample of middle-income preschoolers in symbolic magnitude comparison. These results suggest a brief intervention that combines non-symbolic and symbolic magnitude representations can support low-income preschoolers' early numerical knowledge.

Highlights

Preschoolers from low-income households lag behind preschoolers from middle-income households on numerical skills that underlie later mathematics achievement
The effect size for the symbolic numerical knowledge task was three times as large as the effect size for the symbolic magnitude comparison task (d = 1.04 vs. d = 0.34), and considered a large effect size by Cohen’s benchmarks (Cohen, 1988). These results suggest the performance gap on symbolic magnitude comparison skills does not extend to less verbal, non-symbolic measures of magnitude comparison
Low- and Middle-Income Comparison To address our second set of hypotheses, we examined the extent to which playing the magnitude comparison card game improved the low-income children’s symbolic magnitude skills relative to a matched sample of middle-income participants, which was the area of numerical knowledge with the greatest improvements among low-income preschoolers

Summary

Introduction

Preschoolers from low-income households lag behind preschoolers from middle-income households on numerical skills that underlie later mathematics achievement. Experiment 1 indicated preschoolers from low-income backgrounds were less accurate than peers from middle-income backgrounds on a measure of symbolic magnitude comparison, but they performed equivalently on a measure of non-symbolic magnitude comparison This suggests activities linking non-symbolic and symbolic number representations may be used to support children’s numerical knowledge. The second is that exposure to dual representations of symbolic and non-symbolic number can help low-income children build their numerical knowledge and improve their foundational math skills Both hypotheses are informed by a theory of numerical development, which proposes that children’s understanding of symbolic and non-symbolic numerical magnitudes underlie their later math achievement (Siegler, 2016). These early forms of numerical knowledge underlie later mathematical skills, such as arithmetic (Geary, Hoard, & Hamson, 1999)

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion