Carnegie Mellon University
Browse

Promoting broad and stable improvements in low-income children's numerical knowledge through playing number board games.

journal contribution
posted on 2008-03-01, 00:00 authored by Geetha B. Ramani, Robert SieglerRobert Siegler

Theoretical analyses of the development of numerical representations suggest that playing linear number board games should enhance young children's numerical knowledge. Consistent with this prediction, playing such a game for roughly 1 hr increased low-income preschoolers' (mean age = 5.4 years) proficiency on 4 diverse numerical tasks: numerical magnitude comparison, number line estimation, counting, and numeral identification. The gains remained 9 weeks later. Classmates who played an identical game, except for the squares varying in color rather than number, did not improve on any measure. Also as predicted, home experience playing number board games correlated positively with numerical knowledge. Thus, playing number board games with children from low-income backgrounds may increase their numerical knowledge at the outset of school.

History

Date

2008-03-01

Usage metrics

    Exports

    RefWorks
    BibTeX
    Ref. manager
    Endnote
    DataCite
    NLM
    DC