Using meta-analytic techniques, we examined systematically the evidence linking peer social acceptance to academic achievement. Based on 72 studies that yielded 157 effect sizes, we analyzed ...relations between social acceptance and academic outcomes (e.g., academic grades, test scores), including the extent to which relations were moderated by sex, grade level (primary vs. secondary), culture (country of origin), and measurement strategies (peer nomination vs. rating strategies; classroom-based vs. standardized indicators of achievement); and mediated by motivation (self-concept, affective outcomes) and active engagement. A medium effect size suggests that peer social acceptance is related significantly and positively to academic achievement. Moderator effects were medium to large, suggesting that relations were significantly stronger for younger students, students from Asian countries, and for classroom-based assessments of achievement. Small effect sizes suggest that academic-specific self-beliefs (e.g., efficacy), negative affect, and active engagement partly mediate relations between social acceptance and academic performance.
Using meta-analytic techniques, we examined systematically the evidence linking friendship to academically related outcomes, asking: To what extent is friendship related to academic performance and ...to academically related cognitive skills? Based on 22 studies that yielded 81 effect sizes and 28 independent samples, we examined relations between friendship and academically related cognitive skills (e.g., scientific reasoning, linguistic skills, spatial memory) and performance (e.g., academic grades, test scores). The role of friendship was defined in one of two ways: working with mutual friends on academic tasks and the experience of having friendships (as indicated by having at least one reciprocated friend or a number of friends). Small to moderate effect sizes suggest that working together with a friend and simply having a friend were related significantly and positively both to cognitive and performance outcomes. Student (sex, age, country of origin) and methodological (measurement, design) characteristics were not significant moderators of relations between friendship and academically related outcomes.
The authors assessed a battery of number skills in a sample of over 500 preschoolers, including both monolingual and bilingual/multilingual learners from households at a range of socio-economic ...levels. Receptive vocabulary was measured in English for all children, and also in Spanish for those who spoke it. The first goal of the study was to describe entailment relations among numeracy skills by analyzing patterns of co-occurrence. Findings indicated that transitive and intransitive counting skills are jointly present when children show understanding of cardinality and that cardinality and knowledge of written number symbols are jointly present when children successfully use number lines. The study’s second goal was to describe relations between symbolic numeracy and language context (i.e., monolingual vs. bilingual contexts), separating these from well-documented socio-economic influences such as household income and parental education: Language context had only a modest effect on numeracy, with no differences detectable on most tasks. However, a difference did appear on the scaffolded number-line task, where bilingual learners performed slightly better than monolinguals. The third goal of the study was to find out whether symbolic number knowledge for one subset of children (Spanish/English bilingual learners from low-income households) differed when tested in their home language (Spanish) vs. their language of preschool instruction (English): Findings indicated that children performed as well or better in English than in Spanish for all measures, even when their receptive vocabulary scores in Spanish were higher than in English.
There is evidence of a relation between the approximate number system (ANS) and later mathematics achievement. Researchers have proposed various mediators of this relation, including executive ...functioning (EF), numeral knowledge, and mathematical language. The goal of the present study was to determine which factors mediate the relation between preschoolers' ANS and the change in their mathematics achievement over a five-month period. We collected data from 125 preschoolers (mean age = 4.2 years) in the fall and spring. We tested mediation models using path analysis models, controlling for children's fall mathematics achievement, age, sex, and parent education. EF was not a statistically significant predictor of mathematics achievement when controls were included. Numeral knowledge was not a significant mediator, but mathematical language was a significant mediator in both individual mediation and multiple mediation models. Although children's ANS predicts their later mathematics achievement, the relation is fully mediated by children's mathematical language.
Educational Impact and Implications StatementWe found that preschoolers' ability at the beginning of the school year to tell which of two sets of objects had more predicted their mathematics achievement at the end of the school year; however, that predictive relation was fully explained by children's understanding of mathematical language (e.g., words like many, most, few). These results suggest that early childhood educators should include opportunities for preschoolers to practice mathematical language to support their mathematics learning.
Young children's symbolic magnitude understanding, or knowledge of how written numerals and number words can be ordered and compared, is thought to play an important role in their mathematical ...development. There is consistent evidence that symbolic magnitude skills predict mathematical achievement in later childhood and adulthood. Yet less is known about symbolic magnitude understanding before the start of formal schooling, a time when children are rapidly developing knowledge of small whole numbers. In this study, preschoolers (N = 140, Mean age = 4 years, 5 months) were assessed using measures of numerical skills (cardinality, symbolic magnitude, addition) and executive functioning (working memory, inhibitory control, attention shifting) in the winter and spring of the school year. Symbolic magnitude predicted later addition skills, fully mediating the relation between children's cardinality and addition skills. Moreover, children's domain-general executive functioning skills and domain-specific numeracy skills explained a similar amount of variability in children's later addition skills. Results highlight the role of symbolic magnitude in the development of children's understanding of mathematics.
•Preschool children’s gestures, working memory, and cardinality ability were studied.•Children’s gestures related to their cardinality knowledge.•Children’s working memory related to their ...cardinality knowledge, but not gestures.•Low-income children use gestures in similar ways to higher-income children.
Hand gestures can be beneficial in math contexts to reduce the user’s cognitive load by supporting domain-general abilities such as working memory. Although prior work has shown a strong relation between young children’s early math performance and their general cognitive abilities, it is important to consider how children’s working memory ability may relate to their use of spontaneous gesture as well as their math-specific abilities. The current study examined how preschool-aged children’s gesture use and working memory relate to their performance on an age-appropriate math task. Head Start preschoolers (N = 81) were videotaped while completing a modified version of the Give-N task to measure their cardinality understanding. Children also completed a forward word span task and a computerized Corsi Block task to assess their working memory. The results showed that children’s spontaneous gesture use and working memory were related to their performance on the cardinality task. However, children’s gestures were not significantly related to working memory after controlling for age. Findings suggest that young children from low-income backgrounds use gestures during math contexts in similar ways to preschoolers from higher-income backgrounds.
•Person-centered analysis captures variability in low-income preschoolers’ math.•Four profiles emerged with different patterns of strength and weaknesses.•Patterns of performance by profile varied ...across numerical skills assessed.•Age, working memory, inhibitory control predicted numerical skills profile.•Many children need more support in magnitude understanding.
On average, preschoolers from lower-income households perform worse on symbolic numerical tasks than preschoolers from middle- and upper-income households. Although many recent studies have developed and tested mathematics interventions for low-income preschoolers, the variability within this population has received less attention. The goal of the current study was to describe the variability in low-income children’s math skills using a person-centered analysis. We conducted a latent profile analysis on six measures of preschoolers’ (N = 115, mean age = 4.6 years) numerical abilities (nonsymbolic magnitude comparison, verbal counting, object counting, cardinality, numeral identification, and symbolic magnitude comparison). The results showed different patterns of strengths and weaknesses and revealed four profiles of numerical skills: (a) poor math abilities on all numerical measures (n = 13), (b) strong math abilities on all numerical measures (n = 41), (c) moderate abilities on all numerical measures (n = 35), and (d) strong counting and numeral skills but poor magnitude skills (n = 26). Children’s age, working memory, and inhibitory control significantly predicted their profile membership. We found evidence of quantitative and qualitative differences between profiles, such that some profiles were higher performing across tasks than others, but the overall patterns of performance varied across the different numerical skills assessed.
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.
The prevalence of tablet computer use among young children has risen dramatically, as have educational apps claiming to promote school readiness skills such as mathematical knowledge. Parents can ...contribute to their preschoolers' math readiness through the math talk they provide during everyday interactions in traditional nonelectronic activities. However, it is unclear how parents talk about math during tablet play with their children, and how additional suggestions to focus on math might increase the frequency of this talk during tablet play. Fifty-one parents and their 4- and 5-year-olds (Mage = 5 years, 0 months) played with a tablet-based numerical board game for 10 min. Half of the parents were randomly assigned to receive brief additional guidance to focus on teaching their children about numbers while playing the game. All parents produced a large amount of math-related talk relative to total talk while playing the numerical tablet game, yet parents who received the additional instructions produced more math-related talk compared to parents who did not receive the additional instructions. Children also produced more math-related talk in response to parent prompting when their parents received the additional guidance. Further, parents talked significantly less about counting when their children were more skilled at counting, but only when given guidance to talk about numeracy. The findings show promising evidence that math-related tablet computer games serve as an ideal context for parent-child math talk, and with brief guidance, frequency of this talk can be increased.
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