Abstract

The purpose of the current research was: (1) To assess differences in early numeracy, phonological awareness, receptive language, executive functioning, and working memory for children in two childcare settings (family and center); (2) To determine whether applied measures of phonological awareness and executive functioning could serve as predictors of numeracy performance. Children (N = 89) ranging in age from 39 to 75 months were recruited from state-licensed childcare centers and family childcare homes. Teacher ratings of executive functioning were significantly related to early number skills, phonological awareness, and receptive language, but none of the parent ratings were significantly related to the child scores. The overall model did not differ between center and family childcare children. Phonological awareness was a significant predictor of number skills for both younger and older children. Receptive language skills were the best predictor of early numeracy performance for younger children and the best predictor for older children was phonological working memory measured by a non-words repetition task. These results suggest a connection between children's numeracy skills and a developmental change from receptive language skills to phonological working memory skills.

Keywords: childcare, early numeracy, executive functioning, phonological awareness, working memory

#### 1. Introduction

A strong case exists for the need to understand the relationships between the factors that influence and are influenced by children's understanding of mathematics. Children's mathematics skills at school entry predict future mathematics skills [1], and overall school achievement [2, 3]. It is well known, in fact, that early mathematics skills are usually more powerful than early reading skills in predicting later school success [1, 2, 4]. Perhaps this is because developing skills in mathematics helps children learn certain problem solving and reasoning skills essential for success in other academic areas [5].

In addition to children's mathematics skills linguistic skills play a significant role in their academic success [6–7]. Currently, the connections between mathematics and linguistic skills are not well understood either by researchers or other

significant adults in preschool children's lives. For example, parents downplay the role of early mathematics skills and emphasize the importance of preschool children's linguistic skills over their mathematics skills [8] as do family home care providers, [9] and teachers of preschool children [10].

nonverbal arithmetic problems for preschool children. For children in first grade phonological (verbal) working memory was the best predictor of performance on verbal arithmetic problems. In some cases, researchers have included both measures of phonological awareness and working memory and found that each has a unique relationship with number skills. Kleemans, Segers, and Verhoeven [25] found that general intelligence, phonological awareness and grammatical ability were correlated with the operations of addition and subtraction while the working memory measures, including repeating words and sentences and reproducing a visual repre-

Predictors of Early Numeracy: Applied Measures in Two Childcare Contexts

On the other hand, some researchers have found no effects or limited effects of phonological awareness on mathematics ability when working memory measures were included. Passolunghi et al. [19] found that working memory and counting predicted first-grade children's performance on a mathematics achievement test,

Much of the current research indicates that both phonological awareness and executive functioning measures, including working memory, predict young children's performance on number tasks. If we can demonstrate that one or both support young children's number skills we can make recommendations about appropriate curriculum and home activities. Therefore, one purpose of the current study was to identify the best predictors of early numeracy performance when parent- and teacher-rated executive function, phonological (verbal) working memory, linguistic skills (receptive language), and phonological awareness are included. We included a measure of receptive language, which assesses children's understanding of the meaning of language rather than their ability to produce it, because it is possible that children's understanding of the meaning of language is more influential on their number skills than their use and recognition of language sounds (phonological awareness). Although Austin et al. [26] found receptive language predicted children's early number skills they also found this result was likely due to the influence of phonological awareness. In this study we included measures of executive functioning to provide a more stringent test of the influence of phono-

Many of the measures we used in this study were based on regularly occurring activities in the preschool classroom and home environments. The BRIEF-P [22] is composed of ratings by parents and teachers and was used to assess executive functioning. Executive functioning skills may be enhanced through practice [11, 21] making it even more authentic to assess them in the home and childcare environments where most practice likely takes place. Due to the many connections between phonological (verbal) working memory and mathematical performance [19, 24] we also included a second measure of phonological working memory, the repetition of

The PALS (Phonological Literacy Screening) [28] has multiple tasks covering literacy skills that are often taught in preschool settings. If this more ecological measure of phonological awareness is related to young children's early number skills then it would provide the type of information that could assist educators in creating a streamlined curriculum where mutually supportive concepts are taught [29].

Another purpose of the study was to examine the influence of type of caregiving environment. Many children are in out-of-home care, either center care or family childcare. Significant differences have been found between care types regarding school readiness scores (e.g., [26]), caregiver behavior, and the caregiving

but measures of phonological awareness were not significant predictors.

sentation with blocks, were related to subtraction.

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.81065

3. The current study

logical awareness.

words and non-words [27].

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Executive functioning is another influence on children's academic performance, including mathematics and reading [11, 12]. Executive functioning skills are those that direct problem solving and help regulate behavior and are more predictive of academic success than intelligence tests [13].

Given the importance of children's early mathematics skills to their later mathematics achievement [5] and the strong likelihood that early childhood educators can positively influence young children's mathematical development [10] we were interested in examining the predictive relationship of linguistic skills and executive functioning on young children's mathematics performance. Because in the early years much of the research has focused on young children's number skills we will do the same, while recognizing that mathematics includes more than numeracy.
