Impact of a Dialogic Reading Intervention on the Effectiveness of an Adaptive Magnitude Comparison eBook for Improving Young Children’s Magnitude Comparison Skills

Dialogic reading interventions have been used successfully to increase reading skills. This study aims to investigate whether a dialogic reading intervention will also assist children with spatial and numerical magnitude comparison skills learned through a novel adaptive number e-book designed to be read together by parents and children. This study proposes that a dialogic reading intervention will improve spatial and numerical magnitude comparison skills that will transfer to general math skills following the reading of an adaptive number e-book more so than reading without dialogic reading instructions. Additionally, there are predicted benefits for executive functioning skills and for improving parental attitudes toward math.https://ecommons.udayton.edu/roesch_symposium_content/1045/thumbnail.jp

Effectiveness of an Adaptive Magnitude Comparison eBook at Home

Finding effective technology is important for children’s learning during the pandemic, as families may not have quick access to sufficient high-quality, classroom-like resources. This project is part of a larger evaluation of the effectiveness of adaptive magnitude comparison eBooks for improving preschoolers’ math skills.https://ecommons.udayton.edu/roesch_symposium_content/1046/thumbnail.jp

Approximate Number System Task Performance: Associations With Domain-General and Domain-Specific Cognitive Skills in Young Children

We investigated the associations between young children’s domain-general executive functioning (EF) skills and domain-specific spontaneous focusing on number (SFON) tendencies and their performance on an approximate number system (ANS) task, paying particular attention to variations in associations across different trial types with either congruent or incongruent non-numerical continuous visual cues. We found that children’s EF skills were strongly related to their performance on ANS task trials in which continuous visual cues were incongruent with numerosity. Novel to the current study, we found that children’s SFON tendencies were specifically related to their performance on ANS task trials in which continuous visual cues were congruent with numerosity. Children’s performance on ANS task trials in which children can use both congruent numerical and non-numerical continuous visual cues to approximate large quantities may be related to their unprompted tendency to focus on number in their early environment when there are not salient distractors present. On the other hand, children’s performance on incongruent ANS trials may be less a function of number-specific knowledge but more of children’s domain-general ability to inhibit salient but conflicting or irrelevant stimuli. Importantly, these effects held even when accounting for global math achievement and children’s cardinality knowledge. Overall, results support the consideration of both domain-specific and domain-general cognitive factors in developmental models of children’s early ability to attend to numerosity and provide a possible means for reconciling previous conflicting research findings

Preliminary Evaluation of a Mobile, Web-Based Coaching Tool to Improve Pre-K Classroom Practices and Enhance Learning

Educators rely on professional development to improve instruction. Research suggests that instructional coaching which utilizes specific coaching practices, such as classroom observation followed by debriefing and goal setting, and integrated strategies such as co-teaching, bring about significant change in instructional practices. The goal of this study was to gauge whether or not the use of a web-based data collection and coaching tool led to changes in focal classroom practices and whether or not improving those practices was, in turn, related to students’ academic and self-regulation gains across the prekindergarten year. To examine the implementation and impact of the coaching app, researchers conducted a cluster-randomized trial, comparing the classroom practices of teachers receiving business-as-usual coaching to those being coached with the app. Classroom observation data showed no significant differences in teachers’ practices across the school year, and student achievement did not differ between conditions. Qualitative data from coach interviews, however, revealed that coaches using the app were more likely to employ integrated coaching strategies associated with improving instruction. The lack of differences in terms of teachers’ practices and students’ assessment gains may be due to a lack of statistical power and inconsistent professional development implementation associated with ongoing disruptions due to the pandemic. Further research examining the effectiveness of educational technologies supporting professional development is needed