Geetha B. Ramani

Playing linear numerical board games promotes low-income children's numerical development.

The numerical knowledge of children from low-income backgrounds trails behind that of peers from middle-income backgrounds even before the children enter school. This gap may reflect differing prior experience with informal numerical activities, such as numerical board games. Experiment 1 indicated that the numerical magnitude knowledge of preschoolers from low-income families lagged behind that of peers from more affluent backgrounds. Experiment 2 indicated that playing a simple numerical board game for four 15-minute sessions eliminated the differences in numerical estimation proficiency. Playing games that substituted colors for numbers did not have this effect. Thus, playing numerical board games offers an inexpensive means for reducing the gap in numerical knowledge that separates less and more affluent children when they begin school.

Positive and Negative Peer Interaction in 3- and 4-Year-Olds in Relation to Regulation and Dysregulation

ABSTRACT Using a sample from the NICHD Study of Early Child Care (N = 435; 219 girls), the authors derived several measures of regulation and dysregulation that predicted, both concurrently and longitudinally, childrens positive and negative peer interactions in multiple contexts. Observers rated peer interactions in child care and during dyadic play with a friend, and mothers rated peer behavior. The authors based the derived measures on resistance to temptation (36 months) and delay of gratification (54 months) tasks, as well as observations in child care of childrens compliance and defiance with adults at both ages and maternal reports. Preschoolers who had better impulse control and who were more compliant and less defiant with adults engaged more often in friendly, positive, peer play and were less negative in their peer play across contexts. Associations between regulation and dysregulation and peer interaction were broader and more consistent at 54 months than at 36 months. Longitudinally, regulation at 36 months was only modestly associated with more positive and less negative peer play at 54 months. The authors discuss findings in the context of developing self-regulation and its importance for early peer relationships.

The Head Bone's Connected to the Neck Bone: When Do Toddlers Represent Their Own Body Topography?

Developments in very young childrens topographic representations of their own bodies were examined. Sixty-one 20- and 30-month-old children were administered tasks that indexed the ability to locate specific body parts on oneself and knowledge of how ones body parts are spatially organized, as well as body-size knowledge and self-awareness. Age differences in performance emerged for every task. Body-part localization and body spatial configuration knowledge were associated; however, body topography knowledge was not associated with body-size knowledge. Both were related to traditional measures of self-awareness, mediated by their common associations with age. It is concluded that children possess an explicit, if rudimentary, topographic representation of their own bodys shape, structure, and size by 30 months of age.

Influence of a Playful, Child-Directed Context on Preschool Children's Peer Cooperation

Empirical and theoretical literature on cooperative problem solving in preschool children suggests that integrating features of play into structured, experimental settings should increase the benefits of joint peer interactions and task performance. Four- and five-year-old peer dyads completed a playful, flexible, and child-driven building task or a more structured, adult-driven building task. As predicted, children in the playful condition built more complex structures, used more observational learning, and engaged in greater positive joint communication than did children in the structured condition. Condition differences carried over into a subsequent joint building task. Results suggest that cooperative problem-solving activities that allow children greater control of the task goals and interaction, similar to play contexts, can promote higher levels of cooperation and more effective learning and performance in young children.

Preschoolers’ cooperative problem solving: Integrating play and problem solving

Cooperative problem solving with peers plays a central role in promoting children’s cognitive and social development. This article reviews research on cooperative problem solving among preschool-age children in experimental settings and social play contexts. Studies suggest that cooperative interactions with peers in experimental settings are not as consistently beneficial to young children’s cognitive growth as they are for school-age children. In contrast, both theory and empirical research suggest that social play like that seen in early childhood classrooms is a context in which young children gain critical knowledge from peer cooperation. However, these contexts differ in how much they allow children to create and sustain their own joint goals, which likely influences their learning from cooperative interactions in experimental settings. Features of cooperative social play that allow preschool children to create joint goals are considered, and suggestions for future research are proposed to integrate these features into experimental settings in order to provide a fuller understanding of the development of cooperative problem solving in young children and its benefits.

Domain-Specific and Domain-General Training to Improve Kindergarten Children’s Mathematics

Ensuring that kindergarten children have a solid foundation in early numerical knowledge is of critical importance for later mathematical achievement. In this study, we targeted improving the numerical knowledge of kindergarteners (n = 81) from primarily low-income backgrounds using two approaches: one targeting their conceptual knowledge, specifically, their understanding of numerical magnitudes; and the other targeting their underlying cognitive system, specifically, their working memory. Both interventions involved playing game-like activities on tablet computers over the course of several sessions. As predicted, both interventions improved children’s numerical magnitude knowledge as compared to a no-contact control group, suggesting that both domain-specific and domain-general interventions facilitate mathematical learning. Individual differences in effort during the working memory game, but not the number knowledge training game predicted children’s improvements in number line estimation. The results demonstrate the potential of using a rapidly growing technology in early childhood classrooms to promote young children’s numerical knowledge.

Improving Low-Income Children’s Number Sense

Publisher Summary This chapter describes how a theoretical analysis and empirical findings regarding number sense led to the development of an educational intervention that produces large and rapid increases in low-income childrens mathematical knowledge. Absolute differences in mathematical knowledge between children from richer and poorer backgrounds, already substantial in kindergarten, steadily widen over the course of schooling. One result of the minimal mathematical input they receive is that children from low-income families often enter school with poorly developed number sense. There is widespread agreement that acquiring number sense is an important part of mathematical development and an important goal of mathematics instruction. The nonverbal representations of quantity appear to be largely spatial, though other sensory modalities also seem to be included in the representation. Both behavioral and neural data support the mental number line construct. Given that children can count from 1 to 10 at least a year before they show knowledge of the magnitudes of knowledge in this range, counting is clearly insufficient for generating accurate numerical magnitude representations.

It all adds up Learning early math through play and games

Playing and learning mathematics do not have to be mutually exclusive activities, especially in kindergarten. Play and games can give young children opportunities to learn and develop foundational math skills that are aligned with Common Core standards for mathematics through age-appropriate, fun, and engaging activities.

Narrowing the Early Mathematics Gap: A Play-Based Intervention to Promote Low-Income Preschoolers’ Number Skills

Preschoolers from low-income households lag behind preschoolers from middle-income households on numerical skills that underlie later mathematics achievement. However, it is unknown whether these gaps exist on parallel measures of symbolic and non-symbolic numerical skills. Experiment 1 indicated preschoolers from low-income backgrounds were less accurate than peers from middle-income backgrounds on a measure of symbolic magnitude comparison, but they performed equivalently on a measure of non-symbolic magnitude comparison. This suggests activities linking non-symbolic and symbolic number representations may be used to support children’s numerical knowledge. Experiment 2 randomly assigned low-income preschoolers (Mean Age = 4.7 years) to play either a numerical magnitude comparison or a numerical matching card game across four 15 min sessions over a 3-week period. The magnitude comparison card game led to significant improvements in participants’ symbolic magnitude comparison skills in an immediate posttest assessment. Following the intervention, low-income participants performed equivalently to an age- and gender-matched sample of middle-income preschoolers in symbolic magnitude comparison. These results suggest a brief intervention that combines non-symbolic and symbolic magnitude representations can support low-income preschoolers’ early numerical knowledge.