Deconstructing Building Blocks: Preschoolers ’ Spatial Assembly Performance Relates to Early Mathematical Skills1

This study focuses on three main goals: First, 3-year-olds ’ spatial assembly skills are probed using interlocking block constructions (N = 102). A detailed scoring scheme provides insight into early spatial processing and offers information beyond a basic accuracy score. Second, the relation of spatial assembly to early mathemati-cal skills was evaluated. Spatial skill independently predicted a significant amount of the variability in concur-rent mathematical performance. Finally, the relationship between spatial assembly skill and socioeconomic status (SES), gender, and parent-reported spatial language was examined. While children’s performance did not differ by gender, lower-SES children were already lagging behind higher-SES children in block assembly. Furthermore, lower-SES parents reported using significantly fewer spatial words with their children. The child amidst his baubles is learning the action of light, motion, gravity, muscular force …. Ralph Waldo Emerson. Spatial thinking, or mentally manipulating informa-tion about the structure of the shapes and spaces in one’s environment, may be crucial for developing skills that support later science, technology, engi-neering, and mathematics (STEM) learning (New