Data on preschool children׳s math, patterning, and spatial knowledge

Abstract

Initial participants were 79 children who were recruited from six preschool programs in the U.S. Full assessment data was available for 73 children (average age of 4 years 7 months), including demographic data (gender, ethnicity, financial need, language(s) spoken at home and special education status). Children׳s math, repeating patterning, spatial and verbal skills were assessed at the beginning of the pre-kindergarten year. Assessments included the brief version of the Research-Based Early Mathematics Assessment, two measures of repeating patterning skills, three measures of spatial skills (the Block Design subtest of the Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence, the Position in Space subtest of the Developmental Test of Visual Perception, and a Corsi Block Tapping Task), the Picture Vocabulary Test from the NIH Toolbox app and a backward letter span task. Near the end of the school year, their math knowledge was re-assessed using the same math measure, as was their memory span (forward and backward digit span task from the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children). Findings on the relations between patterning, spatial and math skills are published elsewhere (Rittle-Johnson et al., 2018) [1].