The findings from the Centre for Research on the Wider Benefits of Learning showed that children's skill in copying shapes, such as a circle, square, diamond or triangle, was even more indicative than their use of vocabulary in pointing to future achievement.
Centre director Dr Leon Feinstein and researcher Kathryn Duckworth found that 'positive development in copying ability' between three and a half and five years old was related to success in reading and maths when the children reached ten. Their report, Development in the Early Years: its importance for school performance and adult outcomes, also found that this skill was 'strongly associated with highest educational qualifications and the measure of income at age 30'.
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