| Sumario: | A study examined whether the quality of numerical magnitude representations among first graders, aged approximately seven years, was correlated with, predictive of, and causally related to their arithmetic learning. Findings revealed that the children's pretest numerical magnitude representations were associated with their pretest arithmetic knowledge and were predictive of their learning of answers to unfamiliar arithmetic problems. The relationship to learning of unfamiliar problems persisted after prior arithmetic knowledge, short-term memory for numbers, and math achievement test scores were controlled for. In addition, when randomly chosen children were presented with accurate visual representations of the magnitudes of addends and sums, their learning of the answers to the problems improved. Consequently, numerical magnitude representations were both correlationally and causally associated with arithmetic learning.
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