Game Based Intervention to Develop Early Childhood Mathematical Understanding and Decrease Gaps Related to Socioeconomic Status

Early mathematical understanding is important for later success in mathematics. Game based interventions can be a successful means by which to help young students to improve their mathematical understandings. The purpose of this study is to examine whether a math game that was to be played at home improved the mathematical understanding of kindergarten students. Kindergarten students, from rural Idaho, were assigned to a group that played math games ( n = 15) or a control group that did not ( n = 13). The intervention group was given a simple math game and instructed to play 20 times in a 2 week period. The control group played a sight word game with the same instructions for frequency. Results showed that playing the game at home did not improve performance on the math assessment. A survey was also used to gather information about whether or not reported amounts of game playing at home would be correlated to higher scores on a mathematics assessment. Results showed that reported game playing at home was not related to higher scores on a mathematics assessment.