This project tested the effects of adding instruction of trios of children in patterning, mathematics, early literacy, or social studies to ongoing instruction in kindergartens. Children were randomly assigned to trios which were randomly assigned to one of four kinds of instruction. A quarter of the trios received patterning instruction with a…

Cognitive abilities, executive functions (EFs) and patterning, and simple measures of early literacy and mathematics were measured for 275 kindergartners during the second and third month of formal schooling. An exploratory factor analysis revealed four factors. The first was a literacy factor, to which a number series scale made a small…

The importance of social-emotional competence, executive functioning, and behavioural recognition of patterns by young children is receiving increased attention from researchers, schools, parents, and teachers due to the beneficial outcomes of children who have skills in each. This paper presents studies of the correlations between these variables…

The effects of instructing kindergarten students (five-year-old in their first year of public school) on patterning were tested. Up to nine students in each class were randomly assigned to three groups in each of six classes, i.e., as many as three from a class in each group. One group received instruction on complex patterns similar to those…

This essay is a distillations of decades of efforts at cognitive intervention by many educators. Three likely outcomes for cognitive interventions are described. Recommendations for when interventions can most effectively be conducted, and what children are most likely to respond most favorably are also advanced. Finally, the general nature of the…

Detecting a pattern within a sequence of ordered units, defined as patterning, is a cognitive ability that is important in learning mathematics and influential in learning to read. The present study was designed to examine relations between first-grade children's executive functions, patterning, and reading abilities, and to examine whether these…

"Patterning" is a cognitive intervention that is unknown to psychologists, but has nevertheless been taught for half a century in nearly all kindergartens and many preschools in English-speaking countries. Patterning is the understanding that a certain rule governs the sequence of items in a series. At the simplest level, if the series…

The importance of social-emotional competence, executive functioning, and behavioural recognition of patterns by young children is receiving increased attention from researchers, schools, parents, and teachers due to the beneficial outcomes of children who have skills in each. This paper presents studies of the correlations between these variables…

Young children have been taught simple sequences of alternating shapes and colors, referred to as "patterning", for the past half century in the hope that their understanding of pre-algebra and their mathematics achievement would be improved. The evidence that such patterning instruction actually improves children's academic achievement…