| In recent years,there has been an increased interest in the development of children's early patterning skills.Knowledge of pattern is considered to be a central component of early mathematics knowledge,which has a positive impact on children's mathematical skills and mathematical thinking.However,strong experimental evidence from other cultural contexts is needed to determine if these relations are causal.Based on some widely used pattern measures and the early mathematics education and practice in China,the current study selected 4-6-year-old children as the participant and designed patterning skills assessments.We assessed 4-6-year-old children's performance on patterning tasks and analyzed children's errors and self-explanations to develop a better understanding of preschooler' s thinking about patterns.Besides,we explored preschoolers' patterning skills and their relationship with numerical ability,as well as their mechanism.We also investigated the effects of preschoolers' home math environment and other cognitive abilities on their patterning skills.Finally,the patterning teaching intervention is carried out by forming a teaching and research community with preschool teachers and the effectiveness of the intervention is verified by case observations and post-test.Study 1:Developed 4-6-year-old children' s patterning assessments.Firstly,for 4-5-year-old children,the current study adopted a widely used patterning measures Research-based Patterning Assessment,and two additional items,the cycled extending items,were adapted from Papic(2011),which has been adapted and verified for its local applicability,which consisted of five activities that are based on the development track common in research with repeating patterns based on the developmental trajectory for preschooler's repeating patterns and includes five levels:pattern duplication,pattern filling,pattern extension,pattern abstraction,and pattern unit recognition.It has been verified to have good reliability,validity,and local applicability.Secondly,for 5-6-year-old children,based on the literature,the growing patterns are added.The patterning measure consisted of six different tasks with two types of patterns which are repeating patterns and growing patterns and the six tasks are repeating pattern extension,abstraction,and pattern unit recognition,and growing patterns includes filling,linear extension,and spatial extension.The verification results show that the structure of 5-6-year-old children's patterning skills assessment is reasonable with good reliability and validity.Study 2:Based on the existing patterning assessment,the current study analyzed the development characteristics of 4-6-year-old children's patterning skills and their errors and self-explanations in clinical interviews.Most 4-5-year-old children could duplicate,fill and extend a repeating pattern,but only a few children were able to the repeating pattern and identify the pattern unit.Most children mainly use one-on-one matching or corresponding strategy when completing pattern abstraction tasks,which indicated they did not abstract the underlying rule of the pattern.Most 5-6-year-old children had a better performance on repeating patterns,but difficult on growing patterns,especially on the extension tasks of growing patterns,which is difficult for preschoolers to focus on the changes in the number of elements and other characteristics simultaneously.Children's performance on growing patterns shows 4 levels:?Pre-structural stage;?Emergent stage;?Partial structural stage;? Structural stage.Children have significant age differences in the abstract tasks of the repeating pattern and the extending tasks of the growing pattern,and there are only regional differences in the two extension tasks of the growing pattern.Whether to participate in out-of-school learning is one of the important factors that affect children's patterning skills,and it is shown that children who have participated in out-of-school learning(including two forms of out-of-school tutoring classes and home learning)had a better performance than children who have not participated in out-of-school learning.5-6-year-old children show different types of errors and strategies in growing pattern tasks such as the filling of growing patterns,linear extension,and spatial structure extension.Study 3:Based on the development characteristics of 4-6 years old children's patterning skills,the current study explored how patterning skills are related to mathematical ability,a battery of math assessments in addition to general cognitive assessments were used.The result indicated that Children's patterning skills were significantly linked to their performance on general cognitive ability measures(e.g.,spatial skills)and mathematics ability.Preschoolers' patterning skills independently and significantly predicted their numerical ability,including formal numerical ability and informal numerical ability.4-5-year-old children's patterning skills predicted the patterning skills and numerical ability one year later.4-5-year old's Spatial skills mediated the relationship between patterning skills and numerical ability and play a completely mediating role in the relationship between patterning skills and formal numerical ability.5-6-year old's spatial skills mediated the relationship between patterning skills and numerical ability.Spatial skills play a completely mediating role between patterning skills and numerical ability and plays a part of mediating role between growing pattern and numerical ability.Study 4:In order to have a better understanding what was the source of growth in preschoolers' patterning skills,the current study explored the influencing factors of children's patterning skills mainly investigated the influence of home math environment and other cognitive factors(e.g.,spatial skills).The results show that family socioeconomic status,parents' mathematics performance,and family math activities and pattern activities are predictors of children's patterning skills.Family mathematical activities and pattern activities separately mediated the relationship between family socioeconomic status and children's patterning skills.It also plays a completely mediating role between parents' math performance and children's patterning skills.Visual-spatial working memory and spatial ability significantly predicted children's patterning skills.Visual-spatial working memory mediated the relationship between Spatial visualization and children's growing pattern skills.Study 5:Because of the importance of early patterning skills and the confusion of patterning teaching in kindergartens,the current study designed a patterning training plan,combined with case observation and post-test,to verify the effectiveness of the intervention.Children who received patterning teaching effectively improved in their patterning skills and numerical ability,especially improved in pattern abstraction and recognition of pattern unit the most.Different patterning language representations contribute to the improvement of children's patterning skills and self-explanations.There is no significant difference in the educational effects of the two label groups(letter labels and concrete language).4-5 years old who were taught using letter labels could understand and use abstract letter labels for patterning interpretation.In summary,the current study further clarifies the importance of paying attention to the development of children' s early patterning skills and its positive relationship with numerical ability.The results of this study and intervention design can provide empirical evidence for the educational practice of kindergartens.The current findings suggest that early patterning skills should be paying more attention to in early mathematics education practice.There are several ways to scaffold children's patterning skills and we should be promoting children's patterning skills using evidence-based practices,not minimizing their importance.Besides,children's patterning experience should extend to their home environment by cooperating with their parents. |
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