Table 2.

Descriptions of tasks and items for each numeracy skill.

Skill	Description	Sets
One-to-one Counting	Children were presented with a set of dots and asked to count the set.	3, 4, 6, 8, 11, 14, 16, 20
Cardinalitybce	This task was assessed in the context of the structured counting task. At the completion of each one-to-one counting item, children were asked to indicate how many dots there were in all. A correct response indicated that the child understood the last number counted means “how many.” Notably, a correct response was the last number a child counted in the counting sequence regardless of whether or not the counting sequence was correct. For example, if (for a set of 3) a child counted “1, 2, 3” for the one-to-one counting task, the correct cardinality response would be “3.” But, if a child counted “1, 2, 3, 4” for a set of 3, the correct response to the cardinality task would be “4” because it would be a demonstration that the child knew the rule.	3, 4, 6, 8, 11, 14, 16, 20
Count a subsetabcdef	Children were presented with a specific quantity of objects (e.g. 15) and asked to count out a smaller set of objects (e.g. 5) from the larger set. In the second part of this task, children were presented with a set of pictures of both dogs and cars. The child was instructed to count all of one type of picture.	Subset: 3, 4, 8, 16, 20 Category: 3, 4, 8, 16, 20
Subitizingb	Children were briefly presented (2 seconds) with a set of pictures and instructed to say how many dots or pictures were presented.	1–7
Numeral Comparisonbcdef	Children were asked to identify which of four numbers was the biggest or smallest. Half the items were presented visually with Arabic numerals and half the items were presented verbally.	Most: (Visual) 3, 4, 8, 14; (Verbal) 5, 6, 7, 13 Least: (Visual) 1, 2, 3, 6; (Verbal) 1, 3, 4, 5
Set Comparisonabef	Children were presented with four sets of dots representing different quantities. They were asked which set had the most or fewest dots.	Most: 3, 4, 8, 10, 14 Least: 1, 2, 2, 3, 6
Number Orderbcdf	Children were shown a number line with one number missing. They were asked what number comes before or after another number.	Before: 2, 5, 9 15 After: 2, 5, 9, 15
Numeral Identification	Children were presented with flashcards of all numbers from 1–15. They were shown the flashcards one at a time and asked, “What number is this?”	1 – 15
Set-to-numeralsb	On the first three items in this task, children were presented with a numeral at the top of the page and four sets of dots below. They were instructed to identify which of the sets meant the same thing as the number at the top of the page. On the last three items of this task, children were presented with a set of dots at the top of the page and four numerals at the bottom. They were instructed to identify which of the numerals meant the same thing as the set of dots at the top of the page.	Dots to numerals: 1, 3, 5, 7, 8, 12 Numerals to dots: 4, 5, 7, 8, 8, 14
Story Problems	Children were presented verbally with story problems that did not contain distracters (e.g. irrelevant information). These story problems were simple addition or subtraction problems that were appealing to children.	1+0=1; 0+2=2; 1+1=2; 1+2=3; 2+2=4; 1−1=0; 2−1=1; 3−2=1; 3−1=2; 4−1=3;
Number combinations	Children were presented with the problem (e.g., 1 + 1 =) and asked, “How much is…[stated the problem].”	1+1=1; 0+2=2; 1+1=2; 1+2=3; 2+2=4; 1+3=4
Verbal Counting	Children were asked to count as high as possible. When a child -- made a mistake, or correctly counting to 100 without making a mistake, the task was stopped.

Items were similar to an item (or items) from

^athe Early Numeracy Test (van de Rijt, van Luit, & Pennings, 2003),

^bfrom the Research-based Early Math Assessment (Clements, Sarama, & Liu, 2008),

^cthe Child Math Assessment (Starkey, Klein, & Wakeley, 2004),

^dthe Number Sense Core battery (Jordan et al., 2007),

^ethe Test of Early Mathematics Ability – Third Edition (Ginsburg & Baroody, 2003),

^fthe Number Knowledge Test (Griffin & Case, 1997).