ABSTRACT

Low-income children often enter kindergarten behind higher-income peers in math; gaps also exist in social-emotional aspects of school readiness, fueling interest in cross-domain relations and whether – and which – social skills matter for promoting early math skills. With a sample (N = 76) of mostly low-income, minority preschool children, we investigated the extent to which children’s adaptive social problem-solving skills at preschool entry vary and whether these differences moderate early math skill development during the preschool year. Using longitudinal modeling, results show that children begin preschool with varying adaptive social problem-solving skills; these variations are associated with differences in the rates at which children learn early math skills, controlling for baseline language and age. Findings illustrate an increase in the math gap associated with differences in baseline adaptive social problem-solving skills, suggesting that low-income children with more adaptive social problem-solving skills – already present at preschool entry – learn early math skills faster compared to peers with fewer adaptive social problem-solving skills. Results can guide preschool curricula in programs serving low-income children.

摘要

低收入儿童通常在数学上落后于高收入同龄人进入幼儿园。在入学准备的社会情感方面也存在差距，加剧了人们对跨领域关系的兴趣，以及是否（以及哪些）社交技能对促进早期数学技能至关重要。通过对大多数低收入，少数学龄前儿童进行抽样（N = 76），我们调查了儿童学龄前入学时适应性社会问题解决技能的变化程度以及这些差异是否影响了学龄前儿童早期数学技能的发展。使用纵向模型，结果表明，儿童以各种适应性的社会问题解决技能开始学龄前教育；这些差异与控制基础语言和年龄的儿童学习早期数学技能的速度差异有关。研究结果表明，与基线适应性社会问题解决技能的差异相关的数学鸿沟正在增大，这表明，具有更适应性社会问题解决能力的低收入儿童（早在学前班就已经存在）比学龄前儿童具有更快的学习早期数学技能的能力。较少的适应性社会问题解决能力。结果可以指导针对低收入儿童的计划中的学前课程。