Early Mathematics Curriculum Research Articles

Repeating and growing patterns in early mathematics textbooks

ABSTRACT There has been increased attention to the role of explicit pattern tasks in early mathematics learning, with growing recommendations to incorporate more pattern tasks in standards and curricula. One critical piece of this discussion is to consider whether the pattern tasks currently presented in formal curricula materials align with the research on the development of children’s early patterning skills. In the current paper, we quantified the prevalence of patterns and their core features in five early mathematics curricula used in the United States in kindergarten and first grade. Explicit patterns were rare—with one pattern every 20 pages in kindergarten and one pattern every 60 pages in first grade. Most of these explicit pattern tasks included repeating patterns (73%) instead of growing patterns (27%), though this trend was prominent in kindergarten texts and slightly reversed in the first-grade texts. The features of the pattern tasks were often misaligned with research recommendations; most tasks were simplistic, and there was little variability in the complexity of the pattern materials and structures. These findings highlight the need to pinpoint the specific features of pattern tasks that optimize children’s learning opportunities and how best to align these with real-world learning materials.

Developing mathematical patterning in ECE classrooms: participatory research with teachers of 3–5-year-olds

ABSTRACT Research shows that attention to pattern and structure is fundamental to mathematical learning and attainment yet early mathematics curricula in England underplay the importance of patterning. In a critical realist notion of powerful knowledge, pattern teaching has the potential to empower children to notice patterns, mathematise their everyday experiences and engage in mathematical sense-making. This study investigated how to harness this potential. It reports on participatory research with ten teachers of three to five-year-old children in England as they developed pattern teaching in their classrooms. Findings indicate that teacher knowledge, pedagogic interactions and pattern-rich environments (all underpinned by an appropriate developmental progression and extended to form a setting-wide shared approach) support the development of patterning praxis in early childhood classrooms. These offer potential priorities for ECE teachers in developing their patterning praxis in order to support children’s mathematical learning.

Pattern in early years mathematics curriculum: a 25-year review of the status, positioning and conception of pattern in England

ABSTRACT Pattern is fundamental to mathematical learning yet pattern has been conspicuously low key within early mathematics curriculum guidance in England despite evidence that it predicts later attainment in mathematics overall. Whilst recent curriculum changes have seen pattern afforded enhanced status, this is within a conception of pattern that marks a significant shift away from the evidence base. Through analysis of 25 years of early mathematics curriculum in England, this article identifies a curriculum landscape where pattern has been afforded little attention and narrowly framed. It finds that positioning pattern as a minor topic in mathematics potentially limits children’s access to “powerful knowledge”, in a critical realist sense, and to learning which is fundamental to deep, connected mathematical understanding. Recognition of pattern as powerful knowledge would position it as an essential, broad, central tenet of early childhood mathematics education and as an entitlement at the heart of national curricula.

The DREME Network: Research and Interventions in Early Childhood Mathematics.

The DREME Network was created to advance the field of early mathematics research and improves the opportunities to develop math competencies offered to children birth through age 8 years, with an emphasis on the preschool years. All four main Network projects will have implications for interventions. Section 1 introduces the Network and its four projects. The remainder of the chapter focuses on one of these four projects, Making More of Math (MMM), in depth. MMM is directly developing an intervention for children, based on selecting high-quality instructional activities culled from the burgeoning curriculum resources. We first report a review of 457 activities from 6 research-based curricula, which describes the number of activities by content focus, type (nature), and setting of each activity. Given the interest in higher-order thinking skills and self-regulation, we then identified activities that had the potential to, develop both mathematics and executive function (EF) proficiencies. We rated these, selecting the top 10 for extensive coding by mathematics content and EF processes addressed. We find a wide divergence across curricula in all these categories and provide comprehensive reports for those interested in selecting, using, or developing early mathematics curricula.

The impacts of an early mathematics curriculum on oral language and literacy

Abstract Competence in early mathematics is crucial for later school success. Although research indicates that early mathematics curricula improve children's mathematics skill, such curricula's impacts on oral language and early literacy skills are not known. This project is the first to investigate the effects of an intensive pre-kindergarten mathematics curriculum, Building Blocks, on the oral language and letter recognition of children participating in a large-scale cluster randomized trial project. Results showed no evidence that children who were taught mathematics using the curriculum performed differently than control children who received the typical district mathematics instruction on measures of letter recognition, and on two of the oral language (story retell) subtests, sentence length and inferential reasoning (emotive content). However, children in the Building Blocks group outperformed children in the control group on four oral language subtests: ability to recall key words, use of complex utterances, willingness to reproduce narratives independently, and inferential reasoning (practical content).

The development of children's early numeracy through key stage 1

Abstract This paper describes a limited longitudinal study of young children's early numeracy development within three testing cycles, at the mid‐point and towards the end of their reception year (at five years‐of‐age) and again at the mid‐point of Year 1 (at six years‐of‐age), located within the broader context of progress through to Key Stage 1 SAT results (at seven years). Assessment was carried out using the Utrecht Early Mathematical Competence Test (Van Luit et al., 1994). This comprised eight sub‐topics, five items in each, including comparison, classification, correspondence, seriation, counting, calculation and real‐life number problem solving. Broadly, one set of sub‐tests related to understanding of relations in shape, size, quantity and order, whilst a second set of sub‐tests related to basic arithmetic. Three hundred pupils were selected from twenty‐one schools, large and small, from rural and urban areas, with high and low concentrations of children eligible for free school meals and/or with special educational needs, as well as representing a broad range of achievements levels based on standards assessment tasks. Whilst this paper focuses upon the performance of English pupils, reference is also made to the larger European sample which involved children from Flemish‐speaking Belgium, Germany, Greece, Slovenia and the Netherlands.Results showed that children's total scores at around the mid‐point of reception year were indeed predictive of later achievement at the end of KS1 though the combined scores over three testing cycles which extended to the mid‐point of Year 1, were more so. Discriminant analysis confirmed that a combination of a counting sub‐test (one seemed sufficient) and a sub‐test focusing on understanding of relations in shape, size, order or quantity (a different one at each testing cycle), together with the general number knowledge sub‐test was best predictive of final SAT levels.Comparison with the international data set suggested a different trajectory for English pupils, with more of a bias towards arithmetic sub‐tests than their European counterparts who start school later. Moreover, the pattern of dependence of scores on age in which no advantage was found in including any national differences was especially interesting. These findings are discussed within the context of different school start ages and traditions of preparation for formal schooling. Perhaps what emerged most strongly is the need for young English pupils to maintain a broad and balanced early mathematics curriculum, which places appropriate emphasis on practical problem solving.