An Embodied Counting and Set Labeling Approach to Early Number Learning

• In Event: Poster Session 07
  In Poster Session: PS 07 Topic - Education, Schooling

Abstract

Background. The current study is a pilot test of an embodied counting and set-labeling intervention intended to improve three-year olds’ numeracy skills and knowledge. Our intervention builds from O’Rear and McNeil’s (2019) version of Mix et al’s (2012) “label, count, and label again” design by adding an embodied, or active, condition. This innovation is based on successful efforts that integrate physical activity with academic learning (Norris et al., 2019) and aligns with embodied interventions that have been effective for number learning in older children (Fischer et al., 2011; Link et al., 2013). Our outcomes include children’s counting and understanding of cardinality, both core quantitative competencies that predict young children’s concurrent and future math achievement (Geary & vanMarle, 2016; 2018). Our aim was to determine: 1) if the embodied intervention was feasible and engaging and 2) if the embodied group’s numeracy skills and knowledge improved when compared with the other two groups.

Methods. Participants in their first year of preschool were recruited from a Midwestern Title I program. In fall 2019, 58 children (mean age = 47 months) were assessed on their enumeration, verbal counting, cardinal knowledge, and numeral recognition abilities. To create intervention groups with similar baseline number knowledge, children who scored 0, 1, or 2 on Wynn’s Give-N (1990) in the fall (n=36) were assessed again in early 2020 (approximately four months later) and randomly assigned to one of three groups: 1) embodied counting and set labeling; 2) counting and set labeling photos of objects; and, 3) no intervention. Figure 1 depicts sample counting stimuli for the intervention groups. Children met one-on-one with a trained researcher for six, 15-minute sessions and post-testing over a four-week period. Implementation of the intervention mirrored O’Rear and McNeil (2019) and utilized incremental rehearsal (MacQuarrie et al., 2002). What distinguished our approach is that one intervention group practiced counting with actions (clapping, stomping one foot) and the other group practiced counting photos of objects. Using 11 decks of cards that presented incrementally larger set sizes (between one and six) and were comprised of five teaching decks (~70% known and ~30% unknown) and six practice decks (all set sizes known), children and experimenters practiced labeling, counting, and labeling sets again [e.g., “Look, there are three claps, can you say that with me? Three claps. Let’s count the claps together; (slowly clap and say) one, two, three. Three claps. Now, it’s your turn. How many claps are there?”). After children labeled the set size correctly for each card in a deck, they progressed to the next deck.

Preliminary Results and Discussion. Due to several reasons, including the timing of COVID-19 and school closures, 29 of the original 36 children completed the intervention and were post-tested. Table 1 presents descriptive statistics of participants’ quantitative competencies in the fall, and pre- and post-intervention. By the time of the conference, a description of children’s intervention experience (e.g., number of decks mastered) and significance tests of children’s quantitative competencies by time and condition will be available.

Authors

• Sara Elizabeth Gable, University of Missouri - Columbia
  Presenting Author

• Afiah Mohd Fozi, University of Missouri
  Non-Presenting Author