The Hindu : Front Page : ‘Snakes and ladders’ to hone maths skills

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‘Snakes and ladders’ to hone maths skills

James Randerson

Board games help children get used to numbers: researchers

It’s an easy way
to give children a
head start in maths
Study done on four and five-year-olds

London: Playing four 15-minute sessions of board games such as snakes and ladders can improve a child’s mathematical abilities significantly, according to a study of four and five-year-olds. And the improvement in numerical tests is still measurable nine weeks later.

The researchers who conducted the study said nursery classes should include numerical board games to familiarise children with numbers before they go to school. It is also an easy way for parents to give their children a head start in maths. “We believe the game helps children learn that the magnitudes of whole numbers increase in a linear fashion,” said Professor Robert Siegler, a psychologist at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.

“They learn that it takes twice as much time to move to 8 as to 4, that the distance traversed is twice as long, that it takes twice as many movements of the token to get to 8 as 4, and so on.”

Giving children an early maths boost is significant because previous studies have shown that differences in mathematical ability between children in the first year at school persist into secondary education.

Mr. Siegler and his colleague Dr. Geetha Ramani arranged three 20-minute sessions of board game play with 124 children on a U.S. government programme.

Of the total, 68 played with a numerical version of The Great Race, a game that involves moving on numbered squares. The rest played an identical game but with the numbers replaced by colours. By the end of the sessions, the children who played the numerical version did significantly better than those on the colour version in four tests of numerical aptitude. The team report their research in the journal Child Development.

Mr. Siegler said he thought other numerical board games, such as Snakes and Ladders, would give a similar improvement. —

Guardian News & Media 2008

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