Mathematics education
Which early number skills predict later maths and reading?
Open access · cc by · source: Europe PMC
Preschoolers who understood what number words mean and could recognise written numerals did better in maths later, while early letter knowledge mattered more for later word reading.
Study at a glance
- Design
- Cohort — Longitudinal study of preschoolers assessed repeatedly across two preschool years and kindergarten; mixed-model regressions controlling IQ, executive function and parental education.
- N
- N=100 · 100 children in the final analytic sample, after excluding children who left, had very low IQ scores or missed multiple tasks.
- Population
- Children aged about 3 to 6 from a US Title I (at-risk) public preschool program in Missouri, recruited in two cohorts.
- Outcome
- Mathematics achievement (TEMA-3) across preschool; WIAT Numerical Operations and Word Reading at the end of kindergarten.
Structured fields used in claim comparison tables when every cited study has a complete layer.
Key findings
All the key number skills improved over preschool, and intelligence and executive function were tied mainly to early performance on those tasks. Understanding the cardinal meaning of number words and recognising numerals at the start of preschool predicted maths achievement, more strongly in the first year than the second. Early letter knowledge predicted kindergarten word reading more strongly than maths, while nonsymbolic dot-comparison accuracy predicted maths more strongly than reading; IQ did not predict kindergarten achievement once other factors were controlled.
Methodology
The researchers followed children from an at-risk public preschool program through two years of preschool and into kindergarten. They repeatedly gave the children a battery of number tasks (for example handing over a requested number of items, naming numerals, and judging which of two dot arrays had more), plus IQ, executive function and letter-recognition tests. They then used regression models to see which start-of-preschool skills predicted maths achievement during preschool and maths versus reading achievement at the end of kindergarten, controlling for parental education and general cognitive ability.
Limitations
The study is correlational, so it cannot show that teaching number-word meanings would cause better maths; the authors say experimental follow-ups are needed. Reading was measured much more thinly than maths (one letter-recognition task and one reading test), and phonemic awareness was not assessed. The sample came from a single preschool program in one US city, and ceiling effects on the number-word task by the end of preschool limit what the second-year results can show.
How this study connects
Role on claims
Each row is a claim on a concept or method page where this paper supports, challenges, or qualifies the statement. Roles are hand-checked — not a model guess.
What children know about numbers early matters more for later maths than general intelligence.
Specific early number knowledge predicts later maths: in a US at-risk preschool cohort, understanding what number words mean (cardinality) and recognising numerals at preschool entry predicted maths achievement, and dot-comparison accuracy predicted kindergarten maths more than reading, while IQ added nothing once other factors were controlled.
Evidence for the claim as stated.
What children know about numbers early matters more for later maths than general intelligence.
Specific early number knowledge predicts later maths: in a US at-risk preschool cohort, understanding what number words mean (cardinality) and recognising numerals at preschool entry predicted maths achievement, and dot-comparison accuracy predicted kindergarten maths more than reading, while IQ added nothing once other factors were controlled.
Scope note — correlational cohort of 100 children from one preschool programme
Limits the claim's scope: a different population, assay, or outcome.
The tutoring-system study tests an intervention on achievement, while the number-line, early-numeracy and anxiety studies only track associations; none of the correlational studies can say whether training their predictors would raise maths scores.
Same question, contrary or null result.
Open questions
Tensions this paper is part of
From concept pages' “where studies disagree.” Disagreement means the same question; scope means different assays, populations, or outcomes.
The tutoring-system study tests an intervention on achievement, while the number-line, early-numeracy and anxiety studies only track associations; none of the correlational studies can say whether training their predictors would raise maths scores.
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