Learning to Count: Structured Practice with Spatial Cues Supports the Development of Counting Sequence Knowledge in 3-Year-Old English-Speaking Children

Routledge. Available from: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. 530 Walnut Street Suite 850, Philadelphia, PA 19106. Tel: 800-354-1420; Tel: 215-625-8900; Fax: 215-207-0050; Web site: http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals

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15

Computation; Young Children; English; Spatial Ability; Cues; Numeracy; Hypothesis Testing; Educational Games; Teaching Methods; Comparative Analysis; Control Groups; Experimental Groups; Pretests Posttests; Foreign Countries; Child Care; Parent Background; Educational Attainment; Bilingualism; Statistical Analysis; Instructional Effectiveness; Verbal Communication

10.1080/10409289.2016.1210458

1040-9289

Research Findings: Children who speak English are slower to learn the counting sequence between 11 and 20 compared to children who speak Asian languages. In the present research, we examined whether providing children with spatially relevant information during counting would facilitate their acquisition of the counting sequence. Three-year-olds (n = 54) who played a 1-20 number board game in which numbers were grouped by decade into 2 rows learned significantly more of the counting sequence than children who played a linear version of the game or those who were in the control group. Both the row and linear versions of the game helped children improve their performance on an object counting task. Children's performance on a number line task did not show an effect of either game intervention. Practice or Policy: These results suggest that counting practice that includes spatially informative cues can facilitate young English-speaking children's learning of the challenging number sequence from 11 to 20.

As Provided

44

2017

EJ1132610