Abstract:

Despite the well-documented influence of CF (Cognitive Flexibility) on early academic development, the extent of its contribution to the heterogeneity in school readiness in kindergarten and early academic skills in first grade remains unclear, especially among non-English speaking children. This study addresses this gap by investigating the relationship between CF and a broad array of emergent literacy and mathematics skills among a large sample of children through two-year longitudinal research. To the best of our knowledge, no study has examined the role of CF in numerical and literacy skills among kindergarten and first graders in the same large sample, in addition to the investigation of the differential contribution to different domains in each of the measured academic skills.

Method: 1050 preschool children and 693 first-grade children participated in this two-year longitudinal study. A variety of age-appropriate tasks were performed when participants were in kindergarten and then in first grade; Measurements of linguistic, mathematic, and CF- Object Classification Card tasks (by shape/color/size).

Results: Correlations and regression analyses were performed between the measures of early literacy and numeracy skills and CF ability among kindergarten and first-grade children, in order to examine the role of CF and its prediction power in numeracy and literacy skills. In addition, it was possible to indicate the differential contribution of CF to each of the academic abilities in each of the research years (kindergarten and first grade). The results demonstrated that CF contributed significantly and differentially to both emergent literacy and mathematic knowledge among preschool and first-grade children and has significant predictive power in each period separately. But, there was some variability across the abilities measured. Inspection of the data revealed differences in the strength of the connections and the predictive power between variables. CF significantly and uniquely explained between 2% to 10% of the variance in the different literacy and numeracy tasks (the highest contribution was to calculation abilities from all the numeric tasks that were examined. In the literacy domain, the highest contribution was to phonological awareness and vocabulary, morphological, and syntax knowledge). We also examined developmentally the contribution of CF from kindergarten to first grade in the different early reading and mathematical abilities. Therefore, correlation and regression analyses were performed between the measures of CF in kindergarten and first grade. In general, CF in kindergarten made a significant unique contribution to both mathematical and early reading abilities measures in first grade, except for the orthographic knowledge. General conclusion- children with higher CF had higher academic performance in kindergarten and first grade.

These findings may help in early and easy identification of children who are at risk for encountering future academic difficulties. Such early identification is crucial for providing at-risk children the assistance they need before entering school, based on their cognitive flexibility profile.

Keywords:

Cognitive flexibility, early literacy, early numeracy, reading, math, preschool, kindergarten, first grade, early childhood education, academic difficulties.