Spatial Thinking: Why It Belongs in the Preschool Classroom.

Children's early spatial thinking abilities are predictive of their later STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) achievement. While research has primarily focused on spatial skills in the home environment, spatial learning can also occur in schools and in informal learning settings in the real world. Despite calls for implementation-as in the Common Core standards-spatial skills instruction is absent from most early education classrooms. The current article identifies key practices that can be implemented by preschool educators to help foster spatial learning. Adopting Chatterjee's (2008) Framework of Spatial Thought and Language, which offers a typology for different aspects of spatial thinking, we argue that spatial skills should be taught early, using examples from the classroom to illustrate how research can be brought to life. We suggest ways to apply simple practices that preschool educators can use to improve children's spatial skills, as well as describe installations designed to foster spatial thinking that can be implemented in some form in preschools.