Related Experiment Videos
Beginning kindergarteners' perception of number
1Shippensburg University, PA 17257.
Perceptual and Motor Skills
|April 1, 1990
Summary
Kindergarten children show varied number perception skills. While many can count and recognize quantities, fewer demonstrate conservation of number or understand ordinality, highlighting significant developmental differences.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Development
- Early Childhood Education
- Psychology
Background:
- Early number sense is crucial for mathematical development.
- Understanding children's numerical cognition in kindergarten is essential for targeted interventions.
Purpose of the Study:
- To assess the range of number perception abilities in kindergarten children.
- To identify specific areas of strength and weakness in early numerical understanding.
Main Methods:
- Tested 97 kindergarten children across 5 classes on various number perception tasks.
- Evaluated abilities in counting, quantity recognition, one-to-one correspondence, number conservation, and ordinality.
Main Results:
- Most children could count and identify small sets, but conservation abilities were low (14%).
- One-to-one correspondence was present in 57%, though counting was sometimes required.
- Ordinality understanding was limited, with only 24% able to name a target's position.
Conclusions:
- Kindergarten children exhibit a wide spectrum of number perception skills.
- Significant gaps exist in understanding abstract numerical concepts like conservation and ordinality.
- Early math education should address these diverse foundational number sense abilities.