Simple things can make a big difference. Studies show that time spent playing board games boosts the math skills of children in early childhood programs.
Dr. Robert Siegler, professor of cognitive psychology at Carnegie Mellon, conducted a study with pre-K children in a Head Start program to see if playing a numbers board game would improve their math skills. Dr. Siegler created the game used in his study, but based it on the popular Chutes and Ladders, which lays out numbers in order on a grid. Players count as they move a token along the path, climbing ladders and sliding down chutes along the way.
After playing the game for 80 minutes over two weeks, children showed improved math skills on several levels that were still evident nine weeks after they stopped playing the game. Among the benefits were improved ability to identify numbers, count, compare the size of numbers and estimate number values. A second study by Dr. Siegler showed a correlation between students’ achievement in math and exposure to board games at home.
Playing games together has long been recognized as having the social benefits of teaching children skills like perseverance, taking turns and following rules. Now we know that these fun interactions also can help young kids build the math skills necessary to enter kindergarten ready to learn.
Photo: JK Shutt, Fotolia.com
