Journal Article

The intersect of early numeracy, vocabulary, executive functions and logical reasoning in Grade R

Henning, Elizabeth, Bezuidenhout, Hanrie S.

2022

Overview

The current quantitative study, a naturalistic field experiment, was conducted in a public primary school in Soweto, Johannesburg, with the objective to examine how children’s achievement on four assessments at the beginning of Grade R, namely their numeracy, their mathematics-specific vocabulary, their executive functions, and their logical reasoning capabilities, predicted their performance on a numeracy assessment at the beginning of Grade 1. A purposive intact group of 59 participants was assessed at the beginning of their Grade R year and again when they entered Grade 1. The results of the study indicate that, apart from existing or prior numeracy knowledge at the beginning of Grade R, mathematics-specific vocabulary was the strongest predictor for numeracy attainment at the beginning of Grade 1. We suggest that early grade teachers consider young children’s number concept development as a cognitive, developmental psychology phenomenon and that they help learners build a lexicon of mathematics-specific qualifiers in their teaching with words that represent concepts of, among others, space, position, comparison, inclusion, sequence and magnitude.

• Publisher: African Online Scientific Information Systems (Pty) Ltd t/a AOSIS,AOSIS (Pty) Ltd,AOSIS,AOSIS Publishing
• Subject: Achievement Tests / African Languages / Child Development / Children / Cognition & reasoning / Computer Science Education / Concept Formation / early grades pedagogy / early numeracy / Educational Quality / Elementary School Mathematics / Elementary School Students / Executive Function / executive functions / Expressive Language / Foreign Countries / Functions (mathematics) / Grade 1 / grade r / Grammar / Inner Speech (Subvocal) / Language / Language of Instruction / Learning Problems / Linguistic Input / Linguistics / logical reasoning / Logical Thinking / Mathematical analysis / Mathematical Concepts / Mathematics / Mathematics Achievement / Mathematics Education / Mathematics Instruction / Mathematics Skills / Mathematics Tests / Mathematics, Applied / Mathematics, Interdisciplinary Applications / mathematics-specific vocabulary / Mediation / Morphemes / number concept development / Number Concepts / Numeracy / Phonemes / Prediction / Predictor Variables / Prior Learning / Programming Languages / Psychology / Public Schools / Purpura / Reasoning / Semantics / Short Term Memory / Skills / Teaching Methods / Vocabulary Development