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Early detection of and relevant information on children’s mathematical difficulties is important to initiate targeted teaching and intervention. This study investigated the extent to which strategy use in single-digit addition provides additional predictive information about 61 grade one children’s (6-year-old) mathematical achievement 3 years later that is not available from a standardised mathematics achievement test. Four predictors available in year one (arithmetic strategy use, mathematical achievement, non-verbal reasoning skills and sex) explained 54% of the variation in grade four mathematics achievement. Arithmetic strategy use was the most important single predictor of year four mathematics achievement (R2 = 30%) and explained an additional 12% variation if added to a model comprised by the three other year one predictors. This result suggests that systematically obtained measures of how young children solve single-digit arithmetic problems might provide useful information about their foundational number knowledge, which in turn may reveal how well they achieve later in school.
