Project Activities
The research team used an experimental design involving 24 kindergarten classrooms of students in an urban school system with an ethnically diverse population of children from low-income families. In each classroom, 16 of the 5-year-olds who score the lowest on the Primary Arithmetic and Language Scale (PALS) in their classrooms were randomly assigned to 1 of 4 groups. Four students were assigned to the experimental group, who receive explicit small group instruction and practice for 15 minutes per day on the oddity principle and inserting objects into series. The second group received mathematics instruction during the allotted time period. The third group received reading instruction, and the fourth group received instruction in the arts. The researchers compared the learning outcomes for the students in the four conditions using several different measures so as to compare student learning of the abstract thinking principles and of their learning in mathematics and reading to see which forms of instruction are more effective for attaining which learning outcomes.
Key outcomes
The results, in general, supported the hypotheses of the research team. They found that the experimental group (which they describe as the “cognitive” group) outgained the others on the cognitive tasks (oddity, seriation, and conservation). In addition, the cognitive group outperformed the art group on all measures, including those in literacy and numeracy. Students in the cognitive group performed as well as the comparable literacy and numeracy groups on their respective measures. Thus, this intervention appears to support the acquisition of both basic abstract thinking skills and on emergent or pre-literacy and numeracy skills.
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Products and publications
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Journal articles
Greene, M.R., Pasnak, R., and Romero, S. (2009). A Time lag Analysis of Temporal Relations Between Motivation, Academic Achievement, and two Cognitive Abilities. Early Education and Development, 20(5): 799-825.
Hendricks, C., Trueblood, L., and Pasnak, R. (2006). Effects of Teaching Patterning to 1st-Graders. Journal of Research in Childhood Education, 21(1): 79-89.
Kidd, J.K., Pasnak, R., Gadzichowski, M., Ferral-Like, M., and Gallington, D. (2008). Enhancing Early Numeracy by Promoting the Abstract Thought Involved in the Oddity Principle, Seriation, and Conservation. Journal of Advanced Academics, 19(2): 164-200.
Pasnak, R., Cooke, W.D., and Hendricks, C. (2006). Enhancing Academic Performance by Strengthening Class-Inclusion Reasoning. Journal of Psychology: Interdisciplinary and Applied, 140: 603-613.
Pasnak, R., Kidd, J., Gadzichowski, M., Ferral-Like, M., Gallington, D., and Saracina, R. (2007). Nurturing Developmental Processes. Journal of Developmental Processes, 2(1): 90-115.
Pasnak, R., Kidd, J., Gadzichowski, M., Gallington, D., Saracina, R., and Addison, K. (2009). Promoting Early Abstraction to Promote Early Literacy and Numeracy. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 30(3): 239-249.
Pasnak, R., Kidd, J.K., Gadzichowski, M.K., Gallington, D.A., Saracina, R.P., and Addison, K. (2008). Can Emphasizing Cognitive Development Improve Academic Achievement?. Education Research, 50(3): 261-276.
Pasnak, R., Maccubbin, E., and Ferral-Like, M. (2007). Using Developmental Principles to Assist At-Risk Preschoolers in Developing Numeracy and Phonemic Awareness. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 105(1): 163-176.
Romero, S., Perez, K., and Pasnak, R. (2009). The Selection of Friends by Preschool Children. National Head Start Association Journal, 12(4): 293-306.
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