BETWEEN SCREEN AND HANDS-ON ACTIVITY: LEARNING PROGRESS AND ENGAGEMENT IN A SIX-WEEK WORDWALL- SUPPORTED PRESCHOOL MATHEMATICS PROGRAM
BETWEEN SCREEN AND HANDS-ON ACTIVITY: LEARNING PROGRESS AND ENGAGEMENT IN A SIX-WEEK WORDWALL- SUPPORTED PRESCHOOL MATHEMATICS PROGRAM

Summary/Abstract: Digital activities in preschool are often evaluated as if the screen itself constituted an intervention. This exploratory study instead examined a pedagogically sequenced use of Wordwall within an otherwise hands-on mathematics curriculum. Thirty-two children aged 3–7 years attended two mixed-age preschool groups: a Wordwall-supported group (n = 17) and a comparison group receiving regular mathematics activities (n = 15). Across a ten-week study period, both groups completed age-differentiated researcher-developed pre- and post-assessments; the six-week intervention comprised 12 teacher-guided Wordwall activities addressing patterns, number and quantity, classification, visual-spatial discrimination, memory, quantitative relations, and geometry. Structured observation was used in the intervention group to document engagement and task-related behaviour. Because only aggregated scores were retained and the equivalence of the pre- and post-assessment forms was not established, results are reported descriptively. Mean test scores increased from 3.1 to 5.3 out of 6 in the Wordwall-supported group and from 3.0 to 4.0 in the comparison group. Observational summaries also indicated higher engagement across all three age bands. Qualitative field observations nuance these patterns: children who resisted paper-based tasks sometimes participated readily in the digital activities, yet they redirected their attention to physical play immediately after the digital task ended. The findings support a view of digital technology as a bounded, teacher-mediated episode within preschool pedagogy. They do not establish a causal Wordwall effect, but they identify a promising rhythm of digital interaction, feedback, and return to manipulative activity that merits more rigorous investigation.

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