Abstracts - Earli

Spontaneous focusing on numerosity and numerical order related to early counting developmentMinna M. Hannula, University of Turku, FinlandMarianne Eskola, University of Turku, FinlandErno Lehtinen, University of Turku, FinlandUsing number skills (like exact number recognition) in natural surroundings is not an automatic,but intentional act – the amount of practice young children acquire in using their early numberskills differs substantially according to how frequently they focus on numerical properties.Studying these attentional processes provides an improved understanding of all necessary subprocessesof numerical skills and of domain-specific indicators of how much practice childrenspontaneously acquire in using their numerical skills. The present longitudinal study is the first toexplore children’s focusing on numerical order in addition to their Spontaneous FOcusing onNumerosity (SFON) tendency. Noticing that some items are organized in numerical order requireswell-integrated cardinal and ordinal aspects of the numberline, and this focusing skill may thusappear later and be more tightly intertwined with the development of counting skills than SFONtendency. Results showed individual differences in numerical focusing tasks and a moderateaverage measure intraclass correlation across the 5 SFON tasks and 3 numerical focusing tasks.Children’s focusing on numerical order increased during this period. Differences in correlationsbetween SFON, focusing on numerical order and counting skills indicate that SFON and focusingon numerical order may tap on different sub-processes of counting development.Quantity sequencing in preschool: Predicting complex mathematics skills at primary schoolHenrik Saalbach, ETH Zurich, SwitzerlandUta Guhne, Universität Leipzig, GermanyLennart Schalk, Max Planck Institute for Human Development, GermanyElsbeth Stern, ETH Zurich, SwitzerlandThe present study focuses on ancestor skills of academic skills in mathematics which can beacquired and taught during the preschool years. It is widely known that formal instruction forhigher order mathematics at school builds on skills which need to be developed during preschool.The aim of the present study is to test whether and how preschoolers understanding of quantitysequencing, i.e. the noticing and knowledge of the ordering of items according to their quantity,can predict their performance on complex word problems in late primary school. Children in thelast year of preschool were tested on the so-called Quantity Sequence Test (QST; German:Mengenfolge-Test; Guthke, 1983). Three years later, a part of the same sample was tested onmathematical word problem solving, number sequencing, and reading. We found that children’squantity sequencing in preschool correlated highest with their later performance on word problems(.52). This correlation remained high even when the influence of intelligence was controlled. Theearly construction of the QST further allowed us to conduct a comparison between two differentpoints of measurement (1972 vs. 2002). This allowed us to compare the outcome concerningmaths skills of two contrasting preschool programs, namely the systematic and unified program ofEastern Germany and the system of preschool education in Germany in 2002 which lacked anysystematic agenda. We found that (East German) preschoolers in 1972 did significantly better thanpreschoolers in 2002. The pattern of our results suggests that (1) the ability to understandsequences of quantities in preschool is a reliable predictor for the ability of mathematicalmodelling, as required by word problems, in late primary school; and (2) that adequatemathematical training of children prior to their entrance into formal education may have a positiveimpact on this ability.– 632 –