Math achievement in elementary school is mediated by performance and growth in number sense during kindergarten. The aim of the present study was to test the effectiveness of a targeted small group number sense intervention for high-risk kindergartners from low-income communities. Children were randomly assigned to one of three groups (n = 44 in each group): a number sense intervention group, a language intervention group, or a business as usual control group. Accounting for initial skill level in mathematical knowledge, children who received the number sense intervention performed better than controls at immediate post test, with meaningful effects on measures of number competencies and general math achievement. Many of the effects held eight weeks after the intervention was completed, suggesting that children internalized what they had learned. There were no differences between the language and control groups on any math-related measures.

Two studies explored the role of play in a vocabulary intervention for low-income preschoolers. Both studies presented new vocabulary through book-readings. Study 1 children (N = 249; M age = 59.19 months) were also randomly assigned to participate in Free Play, Guided Play, or Directed Play with toys relating to the books. Guided and Directed Play conditions involved different styles of adult support. Although children in all conditions showed significant gains in knowledge of target vocabulary words, children in both adult-supported conditions showed significantly greater gains than children experiencing Free Play. In Study 2, classroom teachers implemented our procedures instead of researchers. All children (N = 101; M age = 58.65 months) reviewed half the vocabulary words through a hybrid of guided and directed play and half the words through a picture card review activity. Children showed significant pre-to post-test gains on receptive and expressive knowledge for both sets of taught words, but they also showed significantly greater expressive vocabulary gains for words reviewed through play. These results suggest that there are unique benefits of adult-supported play-based activities for early vocabulary growth.

Domain general skills that mediate the relation between kindergarten number sense and first-grade mathematics skills were investigated. Participants were 107 children who displayed low number sense in the fall of kindergarten. Controlling for background variables, multiple regression analyses showed that attention problems and executive functioning both were unique predictors of mathematics outcomes. Attention problems were more important for predicting first-grade calculation performance while executive functioning was more important for predicting first-grade performance on applied problems. Moreover, both executive functioning and attention problems were unique partial mediators of the relationship between kindergarten and first-grade mathematics skills. The results provide empirical support for developing interventions that target executive functioning and attention problems in addition to instruction in number skills for kindergartners with initial low number sense.

A growing body of evidence indicates that the development of mathematics and literacy skills is highly related. The importance of literacy skills-specifically language-for mathematics development has been well rationalized. However, despite several prominent studies indicating that mathematics skills are highly predictive of literacy development, the reason for this relation is not well understood. The purpose of this study was to identify how and why early mathematics is predictive of early literacy development. Participants included 125 preschool children 3-5 years old (M = 4 years 3 months). Participants were assessed on mathematics, literacy, and cognitive measures in both the fall and spring of their preschool year. Mediation analyses indicated that the relation between early mathematics and literacy skills is mediated by children's mathematical language skills. These findings suggest that, in prior research identifying mathematical performance as a significant predictor of later literacy skills, mathematical performance may have acted only as a proxy measure for more complex language skills such as those assessed on a mathematical language measure. (PsycINFO Database Record

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