Overview
Preschool and kindergarten are an opportunity for children to learn foundational mathematics skills that may contribute to future success. Two components of foundational mathematics are the language of mathematics and early mathematical knowledge. One method for addressing both of these components is preschool and kindergarten teachers using mathematics-focused read-alouds to introduce mathematical language and early mathematical content.
Purpose
The purpose of this project was to investigate the effects of a mathematics-focused read-aloud routine delivered by preschool and kindergarten teachers with their entire classrooms on the students’ mathematics and mathematics language outcomes.
Procedures
All teachers who implemented the intervention received training prior to delivering the first read-aloud. All consented students were administered a pretest and posttest battery of assessments. In the preschool study, teachers used the TEMPLE Read-Aloud Routine for 12 weeks, selecting one book per week from a possible 14 books we provided. In the kindergarten study, teachers used the TEMPLE Read-Aloud Routine for 18 weeks and selected one book a week from the 20 books we provided.
Participants
For the preschool study, we worked with 48 teachers and 665 students. A total of 32 classrooms delivered the intervention in the fall, and 16 classrooms delivered the intervention in the spring. The kindergarten study included 36 teachers and 333 students. Nineteen of those teachers were randomized to deliver the intervention with 179 children, and 17 teachers were randomized to the business-as-usual group with 154 children.
Outcomes
In the preschool study, students in fall TEMPLE classrooms outperformed children in business-as-usual classrooms on the researcher-developed measure, the Texas Early Assessment of Mathematics (TEAM, ES = 0.15), and the standardized measure, the Test of Early Mathematics Ability, 3rd edition (TEMA-3, ES = 0.34), with no differences on the Preschool Assessment of Math Language (PALM, ES = 0.09). Fall TEMPLE classrooms outperformed spring TEMPLE classrooms on the TEAM (ES = 0.17) and the TEMA-3 (ES = 0.24), with no differences on the PALM.
In the kindergarten study, children in classes assigned to the TEMPLE program outperformed children in the control classrooms; however, the difference was not significant on the TEMA-3 (ES = 0.11, 95% CI [−0.19, 0.42]) or on the researcher-developed Kindergarten Texas Early Assessment of Mathematics (KTEAM) outcome measures (ES = 0.06, 95% CI [−0.07, 0.20]). Results also indicated a positive and significant association between number of book readings and children’s scores on the TEMA-3 ( γ01γ01 = 0.05, SE = 0.02, p = 0.01). It is important to note that although the regression coefficient was significant, the ES was not (ES = 0.34, 95% CI [−0.30, 0.98]).