Abstract
Children typically learn basic numerical and arithmetic principles using finger-based representations. However, whether or not reliance on finger-based representations is beneficial or detrimental is the subject of an ongoing debate between researchers in neurocognition and mathematics education. From the neurocognitive perspective, finger counting provides multisensory input, which conveys both cardinal and ordinal aspects of numbers. Recent data indicate that children with good finger-based numerical representations show better arithmetic skills and that training finger gnosis, or “finger sense,” enhances mathematical skills. Therefore neurocognitive researchers conclude that elaborate finger-based numerical representations are beneficial for later numerical development. However, research in mathematics education recommends fostering mentally based numerical representations so as to induce children to abandon finger counting. More precisely, mathematics education recommends first using finger counting, then concrete structured representations and, finally, mental representations of numbers to perform numerical operations. Taken together, these results reveal an important debate between neurocognitive and mathematics education research concerning the benefits and detriments of finger-based strategies for numerical development. In the present review, the rationale of both lines of evidence will be discussed.
Highlights
In the early 1900s, Italian educator, Maria Montessori, who developed an educational method that builds on the way children naturally learn got young children to trace over letters of the alphabet made from sandpaper with their index fingers
We had two preliminary stages in analyzing children’s choices of counting in math. This enabled us to focus on the collection of mathematically skill for children for further analysis and characterization according to other categories that emerged as we repeatedly looked into the data, in the spirit of the grounded theory approach (Strauss and Corbin 1998)
One of the recommendations of the neuroscientists conducting these important studies is that schools focus on finger discrimination, on number counting via their fingers and on helping children distinguish between those fingers
Summary
In the early 1900s, Italian educator, Maria Montessori, who developed an educational method that builds on the way children naturally learn got young children to trace over letters of the alphabet made from sandpaper with their index fingers. This technique was based on the intuition that a multisensory approach (i.e., visual, auditory, tactile, and kinaesthetic) would benefit young children. Finger counting is an introductory skill, in order for children to have a visual understanding of number facts, not the final method to be used for calculations.
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