Playing Digital Learning Games at Home Improves Early Math Skills: A WestEd Study

Can a digital Cat in the Hat help boost preschoolers' math skills? A new study from WestEd found that using a collection of online games and related at-home activities from PBS KIDS — including some based on "The Cat in the Hat" — increased preschoolers' math knowledge and skills, making them better prepared for kindergarten. The San Francisco-based nonprofit agency reported that a group of low-income preschoolers who used the PBS KIDS materials (called "transmedia suites") outscored a comparison group on the Test of Early Mathematics Ability (TEMA), a widely used standardized assessment.

But the study was as much about parents as it was about kids. In fact, it was all about parent-child interaction. The children's parents participated in weekly meetings to learn about the PBS KIDS games and related hands-on learning activities over an eight-week period last summer. They were encouraged to spend 30 minutes a day, four days a week, using the games and activities with their kids. In general, they played more than five games a week with their children, the study says.

One of the study's key aims was to see if parents' awareness and support of their children's mathematics learning at home would increase after the eight weeks. And guess what? It did. Parents reported that they felt more empowered to teach their children after the experience, and they became more aware of their kids' mathematical abilities. Parents working closely with their kids using educational games: a simple win-win. And more evidence supporting many-an-experts' view that kids learn best from digital media when their parents use it with them.

The content and games in this study were developed through the Ready to Learn Initiative, an early learning project of PBS Kids and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), funded by the U.S. Department of Education. The DOE posted this article on the study on February 4. Find the study's executive summary here and the full report here.