Podcast: The Connection Between First-Grade Skills and Math Success

Last month, we wrote about a longitudinal study from the University of Missouri on children’s early math skills and later math learning. One important finding was that first-graders who understood the how to place numbers on the number line and who understand relationships between numbers showed faster growth in math skills than their counterparts during the next five years.

In this podcast, we talk with David Geary, professor of psychological sciences at Missouri and lead researcher for “Cognitive Predictors of Achievement Growth in Mathematics: A Five Year Longitudinal Study” to find out more. We asked Geary if there was a “mathematics equivalent” to students needing to be proficient readers by the end of third grade. He said that while we don’t know as much about mathematics as we do about reading, what we do know suggests that the “end of kindergarten/beginning of first grade” would be the equivalent. “Kids who start formal schooling behind other kids in mathematics are very likely to stay behind all the way through high school.”

Geary suspects this is the case because mathematics is very orderly and foundational: “You have to have the basics in counting to do whole number arithmetic, and you have to understand whole number arithmetic to do fractions. If there are any basic pieces missing, the whole foundation will be much weaker.”

In our interview, Geary also mentions his plans to study preschoolers’ experiences and basic understanding of numbers to determine how that predicts later achievement.

Podcast: The Connection Between First-Grade Skills and Math Success

With our guest, David Geary, curators’ professor in the Department of Psychological Sciences at the University of Missouri

Another study on mathematics and young children was published last week in the journal PLoS ONE. Read about it on Ed Week’s Inside Research blog.