Patterning Intervention for Kindergartners

Abstract

The effects of instructing kindergarten students (five-year-olds in their first year of public school) on patterning were tested. Up to nine students in each class were randomly assigned to three groups in each of six classes, i.e., as many as three from a class in each group.. One group received instruction on complex patterns similar to those employed by other researchers with first graders. Another group was instructed in early literacy, and another in early mathematics. For each group, the experimental instruction was scheduled in a counterbalanced order for 15 minutes in the morning, five days per week for most of the school year.. When tested in late May-early June, the children taught patterning scored significantly better on a test of patterning. There were no significant differences on tests of mathematics and early literacy. However there were correlations between the children's patterning scores and some literacy scales.

Stimulating preschoolers’ repeating patterning ability by means of dialogic picture book reading.

“…It has been suggested before that well-developed patterning abilities might support learning during math class (Kidd et al, 2013; Papic et al, 2011; Wijns, Verschaffel, De Smedt, & Torbeyns, 2021). This might explain why transfer effects toward other mathematical measures are found in studies in first grade (Kidd et al, 2013, 2014; Lüken & Kampmann, 2018; Pasnak et al, 2015) but not in preschool (Pasnak et al, 2019; Shriver et al, 2017; Wijns, Verschaffel, De Smedt, & Torbeyns, 2021; Zippert et al, 2021), and why a preschool patterning intervention yielded a positive impact on a numeracy measure in first grade (Papic et al, 2011). Further research on this matter seems necessary, for example by investigating immediate and delayed transfer effects of a preschool patterning intervention before and after formal mathematics instruction (Wijns, Verschaffel, De Smedt, De Keyser et al, 2021).…”

Principles for Successful Cognitive Interventions

“…Examples of cognitive interventions are programs directed at preschoolers, such as High/Scope (Weikart, Rogers, Adcock, & McClelland, 1971;Berrueta, Schweinhart, Barnett, Epstein, & Weikart, 1984;Heckman, et al 2010), the Abecedarian project (Ramey & Campbell, 1984;Campbell et al, 2012), andHead Start (Zigler, 1979), "patterning" instruction in early elementary school (Pasnak, et al 2015), and "Instrumental Enrichment" for adolescents (Feuerstein, Rand, Hoffman, & Miller, 1980;Blagg, 1991). Some of these efforts have been based on extant theory (e.g, Weikart et al 1971;Kidd et al, 2012)); others more eclectically on anything that seemed to the originators to be potentially useful (Gray & Klaus, 1970).…”