The development of place value concepts: Approximation before principles

Place value concepts were measured longitudinally from kindergarten (2017) to first grade (2018) in a diverse sample (n = 279; M_age  = 5.76 years, SD = 0.55; 135 females; 41% Black, 38% White, 8% Asian, 12% Latino). Children completed three syntactic tasks that required an explicit understanding of base-10 symbols and three approximate tasks that could be completed without this explicit understanding. Approximate performance was significantly better in both age groups. A factor analysis confirmed that syntactic and approximate tasks tapped separate latent variables in kindergarten, but not in first grade. Path analyses indicated that only kindergarten approximate performance predicted overall first-grade place value understanding. These findings suggest that explicit understanding of base-10 principles develops from implicit, partial knowledge of multidigit numbers.