Nancy C. Jordan

Poor achievement in math is a national concern. Although 6 to 14% of the school-age population is estimated to have genuine learning disabilities in math, many more students struggle to stay on grade level. Students may have weaknesses in one or more sub-areas of math because of selective cognitive deficits, inadequate instruction, or a combination of factors. State-mandated math assessments associated with the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 typically begin in third grade. However, early screening in kindergarten and first grade can identify children in need of educational support or intervention before failure occurs. I will present an overview of my 5-year longitudinal project (from kindergarten through third grade) on early predictors of math, funded by NICHD, along with our newest data. We tracked number sense development from the beginning of kindergarten through the middle of first grade, over six time points. Number sense involves abilities related to counting, number patterns, magnitude comparisons, estimating, and number transformation and is thought to lay the foundation for learning formal math. Children (n = 277) were assessed on general math achievement at the end of first and second grades. Number sense performance in kindergarten, as well as number sense growth, accounted for 62% of the variance in math achievement. Background characteristics of income, gender, age, reading skill, and general cognitive competencies did not add explanatory variance over and above number sense. Even at the beginning of kindergarten number sense was highly correlated with first- and second-grade math achievement. Early identification of math difficulties and key intervention points will be discussed.