Kids knowledge of written letters predict future math competence

Washington:A new research found that kid's math competence can be predicted by their early spatial skills and knowledge of written letters, rather than oral language skills.

Children's ability to count sequences of numbers serve as a bridge: Children with stronger early spatial skills and knowledge of written letters did better in counting sequences of numbers found a research,skill related to later math competence in general.

They found that the study was conducted by researchers at The Hong Kong Institute of Education, and the Niilo Maki Institute and the University of Jyvaskyla, both in Finland.

Xiao Zhang, assistant professor of psychology at The Hong Kong Institute of Education, who led the study, said that their results provide strong evidence that children's early acquisition of written language, spatial, and number skills forms important foundations for the development of their competence in math in the elementary years.

Researchers tested the linguistic and spatial skills of 1,880 Finnish children in kindergarten, gauging their awareness of phonetics, knowledge of letters and vocabulary,understanding of spatial relations,their math performance on paper-pencil test from Grade I to III.

Their ability to count in forward and backward sequence of numbers in first grade was tested on randomly selected group of 375 children by researchers. . .

Kids with better written language skills had stronger math competence at the start of first grade advanced more rapidly in math through third grade. In contrast, children with strong oral language skills were not more likely to show strong math ability later.