Supporting the understanding of cardinal number knowledge in preschoolers: Evidence from instructional practices based on finger patterns

Abstract

The acquisition of cardinal numbers represents a crucial milestone in the development of early numerical skills and more advanced math abilities. However, relatively few studies have investigated how children's grasping of the cardinality principle can be supported. It has been suggested that the richness of number inputs children receive influences the acquisition of cardinal numbers. The present study was designed to investigate whether canonical finger patterns representing numbers may contribute to this acquisition. Fifty-one 3-year-olds were randomly assigned to 1 of 2 training conditions: (a) a condition that involved counting and labeling, which has shown efficacy to support the acquisition of cardinality, and (b) a condition in which counting and labeling were enriched with finger patterns. Crucially, we aimed at providing evidence of both training programs in a real-life learning environment where teachers incorporated the training as a group-based activity into their regular schedule of daily activities. Children assigned to the finger-based condition outperformed those who received the counting-and-label training. Findings suggest that finger patterns may have a role in children's cardinality understanding. Furthermore, our study shows that instructional approaches for improving cardinality understanding can be easily and successfully implemented into real-life learning settings.