Three-hundred-and-twenty-eight and 328: Cross-format number integration and its relationship to mathematics performance 2017-2020

This research project investigates the development of the link between number words and number symbols, with the aim to identify potential risk factors for low numeracy. Children entering primary school need to shift from using mainly spoken numbers words (e.g., 'twenty-three') to being able to write down the correct multi-digit Arabic strings (e.g., '23') upon hearing spoken number words. This is called number word transcoding and is fundamental for mathematical development. This project investigates three aspects of transcoding between number words and Arabic digits. In this project we measure the efficiency of the mapping in children of different ages. We also measure children's mathematical ability to see whether the efficiency of the mapping is related to their mathematical ability. We follow children from Year 1 to Year 3 and measure their ability to transcode multi-digit numbers as well as other number skills every year as well as testing their maths performance. This study aims to find out whether a child's ability to transcode multi-digits accurately in Year 1 predicts how their mathematical ability will develop over the next few years better than other measures of numerical skills. Finally, we investigate the influence of language on number transcoding by comparing monolingual children from two language backgrounds: English and German.