Kindergarteners’ Understanding of Multi-Digit Numbers Predicts Later Math Achievement

Abstract

In the second presentation, Winnie Wai Lan Chan (Assistant Professor, The University of Hong Kong) will draw attention to a domain-specific skill that has often been overlooked in early math screening tools – multi-digit understanding, and share the findings of a study conducted in Hong Kong. In the study, upper kindergarteners were administered a variety of tasks related to multi-digit understanding. Factor analysis suggested that different from the case of older children, upper kindergarteners’ performance on these tasks loaded on only one factor. Regression analysis further showed that after controlling for various domain-general skills, multi-digit understanding in the upper kindergarten year could still account for mathematical achievement in the first grade.