Place Value Learning in Kindergarten

Building on previous findings that preschool children develop an awareness of base-ten structure from informal exposure to multidigit numbers, we tested whether kindergarten children would benefit from formal place value instruction, using this informal foundation as a starting point. A total of 124 U.S. kindergarten students participated in a school-based study that used a pretest-training-posttest design. One group of students completed 20 brief lessons focused on the relational structure of base-ten symbols, using activities informed by cognitive science research on relational learning. A second group of students completed 20 practice sessions on single-digit addition and subtraction problems. Both groups showed growth in place value understanding, but students in the experimental curriculum showed greater growth than children in the control group on measures that required precise understanding of base-ten syntax (i.e., counts of base-ten units). Educational Impact and Implications Statement Previous studies have shown that preschool children develop partial understanding of multidigit number meanings outside of school, likely through learning mechanisms that support comparisons and making connections. In this study, we asked whether having this informal foundation enables kindergarteners to learn from formal instruction in place value earlier than previously believed, and furthermore, whether this accelerated learning is evident on place value activities that can be performed with rough estimates of place value meaning, place value activities that require precise understandings base-ten notation, or both. We designed 20 short lessons that scaffolded children's comparisons to help them discover symbol meanings through repeated exposures. Growth in place value understanding was observed in children who received these lessons, as well as those who received business-as-usual single-digit calculation practice and background informal learning; however, students who received place value instruction made greater gains than the control group in their precise understanding of base-ten units.