Abstract
In this article, we tested, using a 1-year longitudinal design, whether symbolic numerical magnitude processing or children’s numerical representation of Arabic digits, is as important to arithmetic as phonological awareness is to reading. Children completed measures of symbolic comparison, phonological awareness, arithmetic, reading at the start of third grade and the latter two were retested at the start of fourth grade. Cross-sectional and longitudinal correlations indicated that symbolic comparison was a powerful domain-specific predictor of arithmetic and that phonological awareness was a unique predictor of reading. Crucially, the strength of these independent associations was not significantly different. This indicates that symbolic numerical magnitude processing is as important to arithmetic development as phonological awareness is to reading and suggests that symbolic numerical magnitude processing is a good candidate for screening children at risk for developing mathematical difficulties.
Highlights
Reading and arithmetic represent the core subjects of the educational curriculum in primary schools
It has been suggested that symbolic numerical magnitude processing is as important to arithmetic as phonological awareness is to reading [4], but this analog has never been tested empirically
Our results are in line with the narrative review by De Smedt et al [3] and the meta-analytic findings of Schneider et al [14] and convincingly indicate that symbolic numerical magnitude processing is a powerful domain-specific predictor of children’s arithmetic development
Summary
Reading and arithmetic represent the core subjects of the educational curriculum in primary schools. Numerous studies have shown cross-sectional and longitudinal associations between numerical magnitude processing and arithmetic ability [5], [6], [7], [8], [9], [10], [11], but it has never been tested whether the strength of this association is similar to the well-established phonological awareness-reading association, as suggested by Gersten and Chard [4]. This was precisely the goal of the present study
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