Sylvain Charlebois

So in this first study, we identified the core knowledge that is important for kids to know early in the preschool years.

And that's a conceptual understanding of number words.

So knowing that the number word three represents three things, three events or whatever of any kind, and four represents four things and so forth, seems like a simple concept to us.

And it is, but it takes kids several years to really learn the conceptual meaning of these number words and then to begin to generalize them.

It's something that chimpanzees can't do at all.

With thousands of trials, they just never have that conceptual insight.

So it seems second nature to us, but it actually isn't.

So we, in this first study, we identified that kids who had this conceptual insight earlier in the preschool years had quite a head start at the beginning of first grade.

So something was going on

even before the kids were entering preschool.

So there was variation in kids' knowledge even before then.

Right.

Yeah, it's a rich get richer situation.

And the reason is once you understand the quantities represented by number words and later numerals, then you begin to develop a network of knowledge.

And it's that network of number knowledge that gets you ready for first grade.

But you can't start until you have this conceptual insight.

And so early insight gives you more time to build up this knowledge base before you start school.

Right, yeah, it is something like that.

And so in a follow-up study, we focused on the two preschool years, and we assessed kids' number knowledge, counting skills, a variety of other things, standard math achievement.

We studied their parents' math achievement, reading achievement, IQ, home numeracy activities, math anxiety, variety of complexity of their talk to their kids when they're talking about quantitative things, and a variety of other things.