Does Focusing on the Unit of Change Help Children Learn Growing Pattern Skills?

Children regularly encounter growing and decreasing patterns in songs, games, and daily routines. Over development, children learn to extend and abstract (i.e., recreate the pattern using different materials) growing patterns made of shapes or numbers. Critically, performance on patterning tasks relates to mathematical performance later in childhood. Can instruction about the pattern unit help children learn skills for working with growing patterns? We addressed this question in an online experiment in which kindergarten through second-grade children (<i>N</i> = 84) in the United States were randomly assigned to one of two lessons about shape pattern extension or to a block rotation lesson (control). Both of the pattern lessons focused on using the pattern unit to extend shape patterns; one lesson also included subtle perceptual support to highlight the pattern unit, building on past research suggesting the benefits of perceptual support for learning. Both lessons about shape extension helped children learn to extend shape patterns and use a pattern unit strategy. However, lessons with perceptual support did not provide additional benefits. Further, the lessons did not lead to gains in extending number patterns or abstracting shape or number patterns. On both extension and abstraction tasks, children who used the pattern unit strategy were significantly more accurate than were participants who did not use the pattern unit strategy.