Helping children grasp math beyond counting
Helping children grasp math beyond counting
- April 1, 2013
- Barbara Sarnecka, cognitive sciences associate professor, is featured in the Orange County Register April 1, 2013
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From the OC Register:
"This Week’s Expert” is a feature in which experts from UC Irvine will share their
knowledge with Orange County on a variety of issues and topics ranging from local
to international importance. To adults, cardinal number concepts — two, three, four,
etc. — may seem easy for children to understand. But research in developmental psychology
shows there is a long gap — often more than a year — from when children learn to count
and when they understand the meanings of number words. While children begin learning
to count — reciting a list of numbers and pointing to objects one at a time — between
the ages of 18 months and 3 years, many 4- and 5-year-olds still don’t understand
the meaning of the numbers. To them, counting is still like patty-cake: a little song
you sing and a series of gestures you make with your hands, and maybe it has something
to do with quantity. But the way counting relates to quantity is not yet clear to
them. Many parents are unaware their children don’t understand numbers because they
count well.
For the full story, please visit http://epaper.ocregister.com/Olive/ODE/OrangeCountyRegister/ (online subscription required to view full article).
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