Reading to learn math
Hübner, Merrell, Cramman, Little, Bolden, & Nagengast (2022) published “Reading to Learn? The co-development of mathematics and reading during primary school” in Child Development. I like studies with huge samples and sophisticated statistical techniques. Here’s the abstract:
Understanding how early reading and mathematics co-develop is important from both theoretical and pedagogical standpoints. Previous research has provided mixed results. This paper investigates the development of reading and mathematics in a longitudinal sample of N = 355,883 students from the United Kingdom (2005–2019) aged 5 to 12 (49% girls). Results indicate a positive relation between the development of the two domains. In addition, a substantial statistically significant positive association between prior reading scores and subsequent changes in achievement in mathematics was found, whereas changes in reading were smaller for students with a higher prior performance in mathematics. The findings suggest that acquiring good reading skills is highly relevant for developing mathematics skills. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.
Hübner et al. begin by summarizing previous research that sometimes found that math ability predicts reading, sometimes found reading predicts math. They also speculate that reading and math may well co-develop because both require basic competencies, procedural strategies, and both application and updating of strategies to deal with scenarios that are increasingly cognitively demanding. Here are some of their findings and conclusions (culled from different parts of the article):
Our findings suggest that positive development occurs in both mathematics and reading from Grade 1 to Grade 6. Students with higher mathematics achievement in Grade 1 showed shallower growth in reading achievement from Grade 1 to Grade 6, even after we controlled for cognitive abilities and initial reading achievement. By contrast, students with higher reading achievement in Grade 1 showed steeper growth in mathematics from T1 to T6 compared with students with lower reading achievement at the first measurement occasion (who showed shallower growth in mathematics).
The pattern of results suggests that whereas prior reading achievement was positively associated with subsequent changes in mathematics, higher mathematics achievement was negatively associated with subsequent changes in reading achievement. Students with higher achievement in reading, therefore, showed a somewhat higher subsequent change in mathematics achievement compared with students with lower previous reading achievement. By contrast, students with higher achievement in mathematics showed a shallower subsequent change in reading achievement compared with students with lower prior mathematics achievement.
The largest change in mathematics achievement predicted by reading was found for average and above-average reading achievement levels in combination with low mathematics achievement levels. . . . The lower a student's reading achievement, given a low level of mathematics achievement, the smaller the changes in mathematics. . . . Finally, . . . improvements in the average level of mathematics achievement seem more likely to happen for students with at least slightly above-average reading achievement. Overall, our results . . . suggest that the association between reading and changes in mathematics and vice versa can differ between different ability levels.
Most interestingly, when inspecting how coupling parameters changed over the course of primary school, we found that associations between prior reading scores and changes in mathematics were stronger in earlier grades (i.e., G1 and G2) than in later grades and that negative associations between prior mathematics scores and subsequent changes in reading were stronger in earlier years and diminished over time. . . . Finally, our visualization of differential associations between reading and mathematics given different ability levels suggests that, . . . particularly students with average to high reading achievement and low mathematics achievement made the greatest progress in mathematics and that with decreasing reading achievement, changes in mathematics became smaller.
They emphasize the value of looking at abilities from a multidimensional perspective, the need for research extending their findings into middle school and beyond as the cognitive demands of both reading and math increase, and research that is not based simply on correlations.
I find this work intriguing because of the implication that students with strong early math skills are less likely to develop their reading skills. It may be because the historic duality of the SAT (verbal vs. math skills) encouraged children to think that they are better at math than reading or vice versa. It may also be that when early skills are not practiced, they tend to plateau out, e.g., kids with strong math skills let reading slide. The finding that young children who develop strong reading skills are much more likely to develop strong reading and math skills is certainly worth further exploration.