Exploring mechanisms of rapid automatized naming to arithmetic skills in Chinese primary schoolers

Early rapid naming longitudinally predicts shared variance in reading and arithmetic fluency

A number of cognitive factors have been suggested to underlie development in reading and arithmetic skills. Although the two domains are strongly linked, only a few studies have investigated the processes that are shared between them during the early school years. Rapid automatized naming (RAN) has been identified as a strong predictor of a common fluency factor in reading and arithmetic. In the current study with 232 Norwegian children, we examined how RAN in preschool and Grade 1 relates to the shared and nonshared variance in arithmetic fluency and reading fluency in Grade 3. Furthermore, we examined whether related processing skills (phoneme awareness, working memory, speed of processing, and symbol knowledge) can account for the relationship between RAN and shared fluency-or if they predict variance that is unique to each domain. Our results show that RAN in both preschool and Grade 1 is a strong predictor of shared variance between reading fluency and arithmetic fluency measured several years later, whereas other predictors mainly relate to the nonshared parts of variance in the fluency outcomes. That is, control variables with the theoretical potential to explain some of RAN's relation to the overlap between reading and arithmetic fluency do not in fact account for this relationship. Our findings provide a starting point for future investigations of the mechanisms of rapid naming.

Language Ability Accounts for Ethnic Difference in Mathematics Achievement

The mathematics achievement of minority students has always been a focal point of educators in China. This study investigated the differences in mathematics achievement between Han and minority pupils to determine if there is any cognitive mechanism that can account for the discrepancy. We recruited 236 Han students and 272 minority students (including Uygur and Kazak) from the same primary schools. They were tested on mathematics achievement, language abilities, and general cognitive abilities. The results showed that Han pupils had better mathematics achievement scores and better Chinese language ability than minority students. After controlling for age, gender, and general cognitive abilities, there were still significant differences in mathematics achievement between Han and minority students. However, these differences disappeared after controlling for language ability. These results suggest that the relatively poor levels of mathematics achievement observed in minority students is related to poor Chinese language skills.

Separable effects of the approximate number system, symbolic number knowledge, and number ordering ability on early arithmetic development

There is evidence that early variations in the development of an approximate number system (ANS) and symbolic number understanding are both influences on the later development of formal arithmetic skills. We report a large-scale (N = 552) longitudinal study of the predictors of arithmetic spanning a critical developmental period (the first 3 years of formal education). Variations in early knowledge of symbolic representations of number and the ordinal associations between them are direct predictors of later arithmetic skills. The development of number ordering ability is in turn predicted by earlier variations in arithmetic, the ANS (numerosity judgments), and rapid automatized naming (RAN). These findings have important implications for theories of numerical and arithmetical development and potentially for the teaching of these skills.