Enhancing Preschool Spatial Skills: A Comprehensive Intervention Using Digital Games and Hands-On Activities
This paper describes the development and testing of a classroom and complementary home-based intervention to build preschoolers’ spatial orientation skills, focusing on exploring implementation feasibility and initial child learning outcomes. Spatial orientation, one type of spatial thinking, involv...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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MDPI AG
2025-06-01
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| Series: | Education Sciences |
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| Online Access: | https://www.mdpi.com/2227-7102/15/6/727 |
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| author | Ashley E. Lewis Presser Emily Braham Regan Vidiksis |
| author_facet | Ashley E. Lewis Presser Emily Braham Regan Vidiksis |
| author_sort | Ashley E. Lewis Presser |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | This paper describes the development and testing of a classroom and complementary home-based intervention to build preschoolers’ spatial orientation skills, focusing on exploring implementation feasibility and initial child learning outcomes. Spatial orientation, one type of spatial thinking, involves understanding the relationship between spatial positions, using maps and models to represent and navigate through space, and using spatial vocabulary. Evidence continues to accumulate that gaining spatial skills helps overall mathematics achievement and that learning resources are needed in this field. This mixed-methods study is the third in a series of investigations that leverage a design-based implementation research approach to develop preschool resources to support spatial orientation with both hands-on and technology-based experiences. Through a quasi-experimental comparison study, treatment teachers implemented eight weeks of hands-on activities, read-aloud stories, and digital activities (including an augmented reality app) and a sample of families also engaged in complementary home-based activities. The findings suggest that the resources help teachers feasibly implement spatial lessons, and preschoolers improve their learning of spatial concepts with the use of the classroom and home-based intervention. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-e0ea264e548e4218a65d3df962f108df |
| institution | OA Journals |
| issn | 2227-7102 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2025-06-01 |
| publisher | MDPI AG |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Education Sciences |
| spelling | doaj-art-e0ea264e548e4218a65d3df962f108df2025-08-20T02:24:30ZengMDPI AGEducation Sciences2227-71022025-06-0115672710.3390/educsci15060727Enhancing Preschool Spatial Skills: A Comprehensive Intervention Using Digital Games and Hands-On ActivitiesAshley E. Lewis Presser0Emily Braham1Regan Vidiksis2Education Development Center, New York, NY 10014, USAEducation Development Center, New York, NY 10014, USAEducation Development Center, New York, NY 10014, USAThis paper describes the development and testing of a classroom and complementary home-based intervention to build preschoolers’ spatial orientation skills, focusing on exploring implementation feasibility and initial child learning outcomes. Spatial orientation, one type of spatial thinking, involves understanding the relationship between spatial positions, using maps and models to represent and navigate through space, and using spatial vocabulary. Evidence continues to accumulate that gaining spatial skills helps overall mathematics achievement and that learning resources are needed in this field. This mixed-methods study is the third in a series of investigations that leverage a design-based implementation research approach to develop preschool resources to support spatial orientation with both hands-on and technology-based experiences. Through a quasi-experimental comparison study, treatment teachers implemented eight weeks of hands-on activities, read-aloud stories, and digital activities (including an augmented reality app) and a sample of families also engaged in complementary home-based activities. The findings suggest that the resources help teachers feasibly implement spatial lessons, and preschoolers improve their learning of spatial concepts with the use of the classroom and home-based intervention.https://www.mdpi.com/2227-7102/15/6/727preschoolearly childhood educationtechnologymathematicsspatial |
| spellingShingle | Ashley E. Lewis Presser Emily Braham Regan Vidiksis Enhancing Preschool Spatial Skills: A Comprehensive Intervention Using Digital Games and Hands-On Activities Education Sciences preschool early childhood education technology mathematics spatial |
| title | Enhancing Preschool Spatial Skills: A Comprehensive Intervention Using Digital Games and Hands-On Activities |
| title_full | Enhancing Preschool Spatial Skills: A Comprehensive Intervention Using Digital Games and Hands-On Activities |
| title_fullStr | Enhancing Preschool Spatial Skills: A Comprehensive Intervention Using Digital Games and Hands-On Activities |
| title_full_unstemmed | Enhancing Preschool Spatial Skills: A Comprehensive Intervention Using Digital Games and Hands-On Activities |
| title_short | Enhancing Preschool Spatial Skills: A Comprehensive Intervention Using Digital Games and Hands-On Activities |
| title_sort | enhancing preschool spatial skills a comprehensive intervention using digital games and hands on activities |
| topic | preschool early childhood education technology mathematics spatial |
| url | https://www.mdpi.com/2227-7102/15/6/727 |
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