Promoting early abstraction to promote early literacy and numeracy

A learning-set procedure was used to teach the oddity principle, insertions into series, and number conservation to 85 kindergarten children who did not grasp these abstractions. Control groups were given lessons in kindergarten literacy, numeracy, or art in sessions matched in timing and extent. The children who were taught the principles of abstraction early in the school year were a match in literacy at the end of the year for those taught literacy and a match in numeracy for those taught numeracy. They surpassed the literacy group in numeracy, surpassed the numeracy group in literacy, and surpassed the art group in both. This indicates that improving the children's mastery of the abstract thinking involved in oddity, insertions, and conservation facilitated a broad improvement in mastery of kindergarten material.