A pilot study of the effects of RightStart instruction on early numeracy skills of children with specific language impairment.
Seven months of RightStart Mathematics closed counting and basic arithmetic gaps for kindergarteners with SLI, but arithmetical reasoning still lagged.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The team gave seven months of RightStart Mathematics lessons to kindergarteners with specific language impairment. They tested the kids before and after to see if the gap in early math skills would close.
No control group was used, so the kids served as their own baseline.
What they found
After the lessons, the SLI group caught up to peers in counting and simple adding and subtracting. Higher-level reasoning about numbers still lagged behind.
How this fits with other research
Kleemans et al. (2011) had earlier shown that SLI kindergarteners start behind in logical operations and numeral pictures. Mononen et al. (2014) now shows a curriculum can fix the basic gaps those kids had.
Capio et al. (2013) ran a similar direct-instruction numeracy program for low-working-memory kindergarteners and also saw strong gains. The pattern is clear: small-group, scripted math lessons help at-risk five-year-olds catch up.
Stocker et al. (2019) remind us to set speed aims like 60–80 correct digits per minute. RightStart did not report fluency scores, so future SLI studies should add timed probes to match that best practice.
Why it matters
If you work with kindergarteners who have language delays, you can feel confident using a structured, hands-on math curriculum. RightStart closed the entry-level gaps in one school year. Track both accuracy and fluency so the kids don’t just get right answers—they get them quickly.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
This pilot study investigated the effects of an early numeracy program, RightStart Mathematics (RS), on Finnish kindergartners with specific language impairment (SLI). The study applied a pre-test-instruction-post-test design. The children with SLI (n=9, Mage=82.11 months) received RS instruction two to three times a week for 40 min over seven months, which replaced their business-as-usual mathematics instruction. Mathematical skill development among children with SLI was examined at the individual and group levels, and compared to the performance of normal language-achieving age peers (n=32, Mage=74.16 months) who received business-as-usual kindergarten mathematics instruction. The children with SLI began kindergarten with significantly weaker early numeracy skills compared to their peers. Immediately after the instruction phase, there was no significant difference between the groups in counting skills. In Grade 1, the children with SLI performed similarly to their peers in addition and subtraction skills (accuracy) and multi-digit number comparison, but showed weaker skills in arithmetical reasoning and in matching spoken and printed multi-digit numbers. Our pilot study showed encouraging signs that the early numeracy skills of children with SLI can be improved successfully in a kindergarten small-classroom setting with systematic instruction emphasizing visualization.
Research in developmental disabilities, 2014 · doi:10.1016/j.ridd.2014.02.004