This study investigates 27 preschool teachers' verbalization of various aspects of pattern structure as well as their knowledge of pattern structure while solving patterning activities. Aspects of structure that are investigated include the unit of repeat, its length and the amount of times it is repeated, and whether or not the pattern ends in a…

Preschoolers' repeating patterning knowledge is predictive of their concurrent and later math and numeracy knowledge, but strong experimental evidence is needed to determine if these relations are causal. The purpose of the current study was to examine the causal effects of repeating patterning and numeracy tutoring on repeating patterning,…

Preschoolers' repeating patterning knowledge is predictive of their concurrent and later math and numeracy knowledge, but strong experimental evidence is needed to determine if these relations are causal. The purpose of the current Study was to examine the causal effects of repeating patterning and numeracy tutoring on repeating patterning,…

Both recent evidence and research-based early mathematics curricula indicate that repeating patterns--predictable sequences that follow a rule--are a topic of major importance for mathematics development. The purpose of the current study was to help build a theory for how early repeating patterning knowledge contributes to early math development,…

In this article we compare two frameworks for analysing young children's responses to the task of copying and extending a 6-dot triangle pattern. We used Mulligan & Mitchelmore's Awareness of Mathematical Pattern and Structure (AMPS) and then Biggs & Collis' SOLO taxonomy, both of which provide criteria for assigning levels. In comparison…

Giftedness in numeracy skills in young children is a phenomenon that is not always visible and easily identifiable. However, these numeracy skills should be recognised in the early years of pre-school education for adequate enrichment on curriculum and pedagogy in teaching young children. Numeracy skills in young children at pre-schools involves…

The purpose of the current study was to examine dimensionality and concurrent validity evidence of the EARLI numeracy measures (DiPerna, Morgan, & Lei, 2007), which were developed to assess key skills such as number identification, counting, and basic arithmetic. Two methods (NOHARM with approximate chi-square test and DIMTEST with DETECT…

Young children have been taught simple sequences of alternating shapes and colors, referred to as "patterning", for the past half century in the hope that their understanding of pre-algebra and their mathematics achievement would be improved. The evidence that such patterning instruction actually improves children's academic achievement…

In this empirical study, we investigate an early childhood education activity in mathematics on the concept of "pattern". The children participating in the study attend an intermediate form of schooling in Sweden called "the preschool class for six-year-olds", intended to facilitate their transition from preschool to school.…

This article describes how in early mathematics learning, young children are often asked to recognize and describe visual patterns in their environment--perhaps on their clothing, a toy, or the carpet; around a picture frame; or in the playground equipment. Exploring patterns in the early years is seen as an important introduction to algebraic…

Although there is considerable evidence that nouns highlight category-based commonalities, including both those that are perceptually available and those that reflect underlying conceptual similarity, some have claimed that words function merely as features of objects. Here, we directly test these alternative accounts. Four-year-olds (n = 140)…

Research on music and music therapy suggests that math and music are related in the brain from very early in life. Musical elements such as steady beat, rhythm, melody, and tempo possess inherent mathematical principles such as spatial properties, sequencing, counting, patterning, and one-to-one correspondence. With new understanding about the…

Infants have been described as "statistical learners" capable of extracting structure (such as words) from patterned input (such as language). Here, we investigated whether prior knowledge influences how infants track transitional probabilities in word segmentation tasks. Are infants biased by prior experience when engaging in sequential…

Young children have an impressive amount of mathematics knowledge, but past psychological research has focused primarily on their number knowledge. Preschoolers also spontaneously engage in a form of early algebraic thinking-patterning. In the current study, we assessed 4-year-old children's knowledge of repeating patterns on two occasions…

This article is a comparative look at the cluster reduction patterns of English #sC onsets in three groups of children. Data from 40 monolingual, 40 Spanish-English bilingual and 40 Haitian Creole-English bilingual children were examined. While there were several similarities in the patterns exhibited by the three groups, there was a sharp…