Exploring linkages between cognitive and numeracy skills in the early years: Evidence from a large-scale assessment in rural India

• In Event: Every child “counts”: Early numeracy acquisition in the Global South

Proposal

The early years, defined globally as age 0-8, is known to be the most important stage of motor, cognitive, social and emotional development in the human life cycle. A large body of research demonstrates that cognitive development is closely interlinked with all the other domains of development. Cognitive skills in particular, such as problem-solving, memory, logical reasoning and creative thinking skills help young children think, explore and make meaning of the world around them. These skills are fundamental to any kind of learning in school or in life.

For the last fifteen years, Pratham’s Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) has been highlighting that a large proportion of children in primary grades are unable to read and do basic arithmetic. In 2019, with a dedicated assessment of approximately 37,000 young children age 4-8 on various developmental indicators in cognitive, early language and numeracy and social and emotional development domains, ASER ‘Early Years’ generated valuable evidence on gaps in young children’s learning abilities which continue through the early grades. This paper presents detailed findings from ASER ‘Early Years’ on children’s performance on tasks in two domains: cognitive and early numeracy. The data shows that (a) children’s performance improves with age, and hence age of entry to formal school matters; (b) there are strong correlations between performance in cognitive and early numeracy tasks among all children, highlighting that they hugely benefit from strong cognitive foundations to succeed in early grade numeracy.

The paper also describes the recognition of learning in the formative years as a continuum in the recent National Education Policy 2020, and the creation of a National Curricular and Pedagogical Framework for Early Childhood Care and Education for children age 3-8 with classroom transaction being based primarily on play-based learning with a focus on developing cognitive, affective, and psychomotor abilities and early literacy and numeracy. While this is a welcome move in the right direction, a lot needs to be done to translate ideas from policy to practice. The paper explores how educators and parents can use evidence generated by simple tools like ASER ‘Early Years’ to understand children’s abilities and inform revisions in existing teaching-learning materials and methods so that children can meet the desired expectations and transition smoothly from preschool to formal schooling with strong conceptual understanding.

Authors

• Shweta Bhutada, ASER Centre, Pratham Education Foundation

• Nimisha Kapoor, ASER Centre

• Aashna Khurana, ASER Centre, Pratham Education Foundation