The efficacy of manipulatives versus fingers in supporting young children's addition skills

Recent empirical investigations have revealed that finger counting is a strategy associated with good arithmetic performance in young children. Fingers could have a special status during development because they operate as external support that provide sensory-motor and kinesthetic affordances in addition to visual input. However, it was unknown whether fingers are more helpful than manipulatives such as tokens during arithmetic problem solving. To address this question, we conducted a study with 93 Vietnamese children (48 girls) aged 4 and 5 years (mean = 58 months, range = 47-63) with high arithmetic and counting skills from families with relatively high socioeconomic status. Their behaviors were observed as they solved addition problems with manipulatives at their disposal. We found that children spontaneously used both manipulatives and fingers to solve the problems. Crucially, their performance was not higher when fingers rather than manipulatives were used (i.e., 70% vs. 81% correct answers, respectively). Therefore, at the beginning of learning, it is possible that, at least for children with high numerical skills, fingers are not the only gateway to efficient arithmetic development and manipulatives might also lead to proficient arithmetic.