Leveraging Measurement Instruction to Develop Kindergartners' Numerical Magnitude Knowledge

Elementary school mathematics instruction aims to develop children's understanding of both numerical and spatial mathematics-two key areas of mathematical learning. The present study explored how learning within one of these areas may impact the other. Specifically, it investigated whether a measurement-to-number intervention designed to increase children's understanding of measurement would also affect the growth of symbolic numerical knowledge. The intervention focused on developing the concept of unit that is critical for reasoning about spatial and numerical magnitude. The study was conducted with kindergarten students in Russia (N = 105, M age = 76 months). Children were randomly assigned to either an experimental condition, which involved measurement instruction, or a control condition, which involved mathematics lessons on topics covered in regular class instruction. At pretest, participants in both conditions demonstrated little conceptual understanding of measurement, as evidenced by poor performance on an unaligned ruler task. Following the intervention, children in the experimental condition outperformed the control group on this task. Critically, the experimental group also outperformed the control group on three tasks measuring symbolic numerical magnitude knowledge: number line estimation, number comparison, and numeric distance comparison. Thus, the measurement-to-number intervention simultaneously promoted learning in two key areas of mathematical learning that have an overlapping conceptual basis. Educational Impact and Implications Statement The measurement-to-number intervention described in this study offers a promising approach for streamlining mathematics curricula in kindergarten and maximizing the efficiency of instructional time. With just 10 instructional sessions focused on developing measurement concepts, children participating in the intervention condition showed improvements in both measurement and number knowledge. In contrast, the control group participants who engaged in mathematics activities similar to their regular classroom instruction demonstrated only limited improvement in number knowledge. The results speak to the value of targeting shared concepts underlying multiple domains of mathematics and of utilizing spatial information to promote the acquisition of numerical concepts.