Examining Patterning Abilities in First Grade Children: A Comparison of Dimension, Orientation, Number of Items Skipped and Position of the Missing Item

Abstract

Current curricula in most school districts in the United States include some instruction on the recognition of patterns in kindergarten and continuing into the early elementary school years. Despite the fact that patterning is so common in school cirricua, very few reports of what types of patterns are easy or difficult for children to learn have been published. In an effort to address this issue, 121 first grade children from an urban school district were tested with 48 patterns that varied in dimension, orientation, position of missing items, and magnitude of the gap between items. An ANOVA for completely correlated factors was conducted. Results indicated that only the magnitude of gaps (i.e., ``skips'') made a significant difference. There were indications of an interaction between that factor (skips) and the position of a missing item. Implications were discussed.