New research shows that Ontario students who were more ready for school in Kindergarten performed better on math throughout elementary school — and even into high school.
“Early developmental differences strongly predict later math achievement, even after nine years,” said Fatemeh Ameli, lead author of the new study.
“The gaps didn’t substantially widen, but they also didn’t disappear.”
The research shows the need to help students who struggle with math when they are younger, and not wait until later grades, says Ameli, a lecturer at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto.
“We shouldn’t wait until adolescence to start paying attention to [students’ difficulties with math],” she said.
The study followed over 25,000 Kindergarten students and looked at their results on standardized provincial math tests in Grades 3, 6 and 9.
Researchers also looked at teachers’ reports of students’ overall “school readiness” in Kindergarten. This included their knowledge of numbers and letters, social skills, ability to manage emotions and physical abilities.
Students who were more ready for school were more likely to do better at math on standardized tests throughout elementary school.
“The Kindergarten classroom is more consequential than most people realize,” said Ameli. “A child’s Grade 9 trajectory is, to some extent, taking shape in the Kindergarten classroom.”
Need to analyze
However, early math instruction does not guarantee continued academic success, says Daniel Ansari, an education professor at Western University in London, Ont.
“We can have the most high-effective early math instruction … if we don’t sustain that into the later years, then the effects are going to fall out,” said Ansari, who holds a Canada Research Chair in Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning.
Early literacy education in Ontario has received increased attention since the Ontario Human Rights Commission released its Right to Read report in 2022. Its findings led Ontario to put a renewed emphasis on explicit reading instruction, including mandatory phonics education in Kindergarten, beginning this school year.
“We need something similar [to the Right to Read report] for math,” said Ansari. “We need to really analyze what is going on and how we can improve, because math is so important, and sometimes it’s undervalued.”
Provincial results from the EQAO tests, standardized provincial assessments, show many students struggle with math.
According to Ontario’s Ministry of Education, only 64 per cent of Grade 3 students met the provincial standard for math in the 2024-2025 school year. That number dropped to 51 per cent in Grade 6 and then rose to 58 per cent in Grade 9.
Those numbers have remained fairly consistent since 2022.
“We need to focus on all of the ages, all of the time,” said Ansari.
Teachers need to be able to better communicate across grades about students’ academic progress and needs, says Ansari.
“I’m not saying [that system] is easy to create,” he said. “But that’s the kind of system where you sustain progress.”
Jo-Anne LeFevre, a retired cognitive science and psychology professor at Carleton University who has researched how students learn math for more than 40 years, says there has not been enough focus on mandatory numeracy screening.
Screening allows teachers to assess what their students know about math when they are entering a grade. “It’s a snapshot of the core skills that will predict their ability to learn over the year,” she said.
Without screening, it can be hard for teachers to know which students are struggling, says LeFevre, who with a colleague at Carleton co-developed a math screening tool for elementary school teachers.
Students who struggle with math early on will often have a harder time learning advanced math concepts, she says.
‘Not destiny’
Kindergarten students who enter school with lower school readiness can improve, says Ameli, the study author.
“The gap [in individual students’ abilities] is not fixed,” she said. “[The research] is about prediction; it is not about destiny.”
School is also not the only place students learn, she notes.
In her research, the biggest differences in math scores were between individual students, not between schools or school boards.
“The gaps are largely being created before children walk into any school,” she said. This suggests that socioeconomic status and early childhood experiences may contribute to how ready students are for Kindergarten, Ameli says.
But LaFevre notes that a child’s math skills when they enter school do not necessarily reflect their home environment. Compared to knowledge about how children develop literacy skills, there is not as much information about how children learn numeracy skills.
But research is growing, she says.
“I think things are moving forward,” she said. “Identifying the problems is the first step. We have to understand what the problems are before we can start finding solutions.”
