Enhancing numeracy instruction through games in pre-primary classrooms

Abstract

The enormous importance of numeracy skill to pre-primary school children has tasked teachers with the burden of imparting the skill in an effective manner. Despite the fact that literature has documented the effectiveness of games approach in children instruction, to some, use of game is disruptive to actual learning. This necessitates more experimental studies to further clear ambiguities about the use of games in pre-primary classrooms. This study examined the impact of games on pre-primary children’s interest and performance in numeracy. A pretest-posttest, control group, quasi-experimental was adopted. Fifty Nursery Two pupils were randomly assigned to treatment and control groups. The instruments used were Pre-primary Children’s Numeracy Achievement Test (r=0.86) and Pupils’ Interest in Numeracy Scale (r=0.81). The data collected were analyzed using Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) and Scheffe’s Post Hoc Pairwise Comparison. Results indicated that games method was effective on pre-primary children’s learning of numeracy (F (1, 42) = 373.502; P < 0.05) and also increased their interest in numeracy instruction (F (1, 42) = 9.773; P < 0.05). Based on these findings, recommendations were made that teachers, parents and curriculum developers should encourage the use of games method to improve numeracy instruction in pre-primary education.