Early Numeracy and Literacy: Untangling the Relation Between Specific Components

Abstract

Although it is evident that advanced aspects of numeracy are dependent on the successful acquisition of early skills, this developmental process does not occur in isolation from other academic factors. Early literacy skills are intertwined with the acquisition of early numeracy skills, particularly at the informal numeracy and numeral knowledge phases. However, the localization of these domains' impact in early numeracy development is unclear. To address this issue, 180 preschool children 3.13 to 5.88 years (51.1% female, 66.7% Caucasian, 14.4% African-American, 4.4% Hispanic, 14.4% other race/ethnicity) were assessed on measures of print knowledge, vocabulary, informal numeracy, and numeral knowledge. Results indicated that the relation between language and numeral knowledge is fully mediated by informal numeracy skills and the relation between informal numeracy skills and numeral knowledge skills is partially mediated by print knowledge. Explanations of the findings, implications for mathematics education, and future directions are discussed.

The role of early language abilities on math skills among Chinese children

“…There could be several possible explanations for the first finding. First, given that math is a special kind of language [ 16 ], the process of acquiring informal math skills shares some level of similarity with that of language skills [ 53 ]. To build up vocabulary, young children connect words to objects, events and concepts.…”

“…To build up vocabulary, young children connect words to objects, events and concepts. When they come to acquire number words, they have to understand that each number word represents a certain amount of quantities and with richer vocabulary, young children might practice more and performance better [ 53 ]. Second, young children’s general language abilities can support their understanding of the meaning of terminologies involved in informal math, such as “larger”, “smaller”, “more”, “less”, “equal to”, “ascending” and “descending” [ 53 ].…”

Identifying domain-general and domain-specific predictors of low mathematics performance: A classification and regression tree analysis

“…We take an exploratory approach in this study given the mixed evidence on antecedents to low mathematical performance classification and that CART analyses are data-driven and exploratory by nature. However, given that specific mathematical skills and concepts develop in a connected and cumulative manner, called a learning Purpura, Day, Napoli, & Hart trajectory, and that these domain-specific and domain-general factors likely play a role in mathematical acquisition for more targeted components of mathematics development (Lan et al, 2011;Purpura & Napoli, 2015;Purpura, Schmitt, et al, 2017), we expected different factors to predict low mathematics performance for younger preschool children and older preschool children. Importantly, we are defining the classification outcomes as "low mathematical performance" rather than mathematical learning disabilities because of the exploratory nature of the study.…”

Dialogisk lesing som metode i barnehagen for å styrke barns språkferdigheter på andrespråket

“…Dette er begreper som blir naturlig brukt når barn spiller eksempelvis terningspill. Telling og å gjenkjenne tallsymboler har vist seg å ha en medium korrelasjon med vokabular (r = 40), noe som viser sammenheng mellom matematikk og språk (Purpura & Napoli, 2015). I rammeplanen for barnehagen (KD, 2017, s. 39) står det at barna skal «utvikle forståelse for grunnleggende matematiske begreper» og «leke og eksperimentere med tall, mengde og telling og få erfaring med ulike måter å uttrykke dette på».…”

“…I tillegg ble alle barna i begge programmene oppmuntret av barnehagelaerer til å fortelle og samtale om hva de ville tegne før tegneøkten. Positive sammenhenger er funnet mellom matematiske begreper og vokabular (Purpura & Napoli, 2015), noe som styrker denne antagelsen. Det kan slik sett se ut som om matematikkintervensjonen kan ha hatt en positiv innvirkning på barnas andrespråksferdigheter.…”