Future Math Success Dictated By Preschoolers' Counting Ability

A new research has revealed that more emphasis should be put in counting as reciting alone is not enough to prepare kids for success in mathematics in elementary school.

The research by University of Missouri indicated that counting, which requires assigning numerical values to objects in chronological order, is more important for helping preschoolers acquire math skills.

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"Reciting means saying the numbers from memory in chronological order, whereas counting involves understanding that each item in the set is counted once and that the last number stated is the amount for the entire set," Louis Manfra, an assistant professor in MU's Department of Human Development and Family Studies, said.

"When children are just reciting, they're basically repeating what seems like a memorized sentence.

"When they're counting, they're performing a more cognitive activity in which they're associating a one-to-one correspondence with the object and the number to represent a quantity," he said.

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Manfra analyzed data from more than 3,000 children from low-income households in order to determine if the children's reciting and counting abilities in preschool affected their first-grade math scores.

He found that students who could recite and count to 20 in preschool had the highest math scores in first grade; however, less than 10 percent of the children in the study could count and recite to 20.

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"Counting gives children stronger foundations when they start school," Manfra said.

"The skills children have when they start kindergarten affect their trajectories through early elementary school; therefore, it's important that children start with as many skills as possible.

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"These low-income children aren't learning math skills anywhere because parents think the children are learning them at school, and teachers think they're learning them at home," he said.

The study will be published in the Journal of Research in Childhood Education.

Source-ANI