One in five adults in the United States lacks the math competency
expected of an eighth grader, according to the United States Center for
Educational Statistics. University of Missouri researchers identified
how a lack of a specific math skill in first grade correlated to lower
scores on a seventh grade math test used to determine employability and
wages in adults. Intervention programs designed to overcome this early
math deficiency could prepare students for later employment, help them
make wiser economic choices and improve the future U.S. workforce.
"Our study made a connection between child psychology and labor
economics in order to examine the roots of America's shortage of
mathematically proficient workers," said lead author David Geary,
professor of psychological sciences at University of Missouri. "We
isolated a specific skill that has real world importance in
employability and observed how that skill related to grade-school
mathematical performance. By identifying a specific numerical skill as a
target, we can focus education efforts on helping deficient students as
early as kindergarten and thereby give them a better chance at career
success in adulthood."
The particular math skill Geary identified, "number system
knowledge," is the ability to conceptualize a numeral as a symbol for a
quantity and understand systematic relationships between numbers. In
Geary's research, having this knowledge at the beginning of first grade
predicted better functional mathematical ability in adolescence. On the
other hand, skill at solving math problems by counting didn't correlate
to later ability. Students who started behind in counting ability were
able to catch up, whereas students who were behind in number system
knowledge stayed behind their peers.
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