Spatial skills as a predictor of first grade girls' use of higher level arithmetic strategies

► We examined spatial/verbal skills as predictors of first grade girls' choice of arithmetic strategies. ► Spatial skills predicted greater use of retrieval, a higher-level strategy. ► Both verbal and spatial skills predicted the higher-level decomposition strategy. ► Spatial skills predicted less use of the lower-level count-all strategy. ► Spatial skills benefit girls' use of more sophisticated problem-solving approaches.