Skip Navigation

What Works Clearinghouse

Search
Intervention: Pre-K Mathematics

Effectiveness


Findings

The WWC review of interventions for early childhood education addresses children's outcomes in six domains: oral language, print knowledge, phonological processing, early reading/writing, cognition, and math. 9 Both studies addressed a single outcome (but used a different measure) in the math domain. The findings below present the authors' and the WWC-calculated estimates of the size and statistical significance of the effects of Pre-K Mathematics on children's mathematics performance.

Math. Starkey and Klein (2005) reported a statistically significant positive effect for Pre-K Mathematics combined with DLM Express for cohort one combined across states using the Child Math Assessment as an outcome measure.

Clements and Sarama (2006) reported a statistically significant positive effect for Pre-K Mathematics combined with DLM Express using the Early Mathematics Assessment as an outcome measure.

Rating of effectiveness

The WWC rates the effects of an intervention in a given outcome domain as positive, potentially positive, mixed, no discernible effects, potentially negative, or negative. The rating of effectiveness takes into account four factors: the quality of the research design, the statistical significance of the findings,9 the size of the difference between participants in the intervention and the comparison conditions, and the consistency in findings across studies (see the WWC Intervention Rating Scheme).

9 The level of statistical significance was reported by the study authors or, where necessary, calculated by the WWC to correct for clustering within classrooms or schools and for multiple comparisons. For an explanation about the clustering correction, see the WWC Tutorial on Mismatch. See Technical Details of WWC-Conducted Computations for the formulas the WWC used to calculate the statistical significance. In the case of Pre-K Mathematics, no corrections for clustering or multiple comparisons were needed.