Mastery of the cardinality principle (CP) is foundational for children's mathematical development. Children's age and subitizing and counting skills contribute to their CP acquisition. This study aimed to investigate the effectiveness of different types of instruction for supporting 3-4-year-olds' CP development and its interplay with child…

A theoretical model describing Grade 7 students' rational number sense was formulated and validated empirically (n = 360), hypothesizing that rational number sense is a general construct consisting of three factors: basic rational number sense, arithmetic sense, and flexibility with rational numbers. Data analysis suggested that rational-number…

Research Findings: This study examined age-based developmental trajectories of four key number sense (NS) skills within an accelerated longitudinal design. Using data from 408 preschoolers, ages 45 to 68 months, linear and latent basis growth curves were evaluated. Results indicated growth across NS skills was best represented as nonlinear for all…

Children's participation in cultural, everyday practices and social interactions involving math and money can contribute to the development of their knowledge and skills in these domains. Further work is needed to uncover what features of these activities, such as aspects of the conversations that may occur (e.g., number and money talk),…

Teachers and teacher educators have been sharing strategies and resources for implementing mathematics routines in National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) journals for years. A less commonly shared mathematics routine, especially with young learners, is "Clothesline Math" (Shore, 2017, 2018). In this routine, teachers create…

The study used Bayesian and Frequentist methods to investigate whether the roles of linguistic, quantitative, and spatial attention skills are distinct in children's acquisition of reading and math. A sample of 175 Chinese kindergarteners was tested with measures of linguistic skills (phonological awareness and phonological memory), quantitative…

Estimation is an essential competence with a developmental role in the learning of various mathematical topics. Yet, as previous studies highlight, this competence is either excluded or ambivalently included in intended curricula around the world. The current study investigates the estimation-related opportunities in the primary curricula of three…

Previous research has demonstrated a link between children's ability to name canonical finger configurations and their mathematical abilities. This study aimed to investigate the nature of this association, specifically exploring whether the relationship is skill and handshape specific and identifying the underlying mechanisms involved.…

Although the roles of symbolic numerical magnitude processing (SNMP) and working memory (WM) in mathematics performance are well acknowledged, studies examining their joint effects are few. Here, we investigated the profiles of SNMP (1- and 2-digit comparison) and WM (verbal, visual and central executive) among Norwegian first graders (N = 256),…

Children vary widely in their number knowledge by the time they enter kindergarten, and this variation is related to their future academic success. Although talk about number predicts children's early understanding of foundational number concepts, we know little about whether interventions can increase this talk nor about the types of number talk…

A large and growing body of work has documented robust illusions of area perception in adults. To date, however, there has been surprisingly little in-depth investigation into children's area perception, despite the importance of this topic to the study of quantity perception more broadly (and to the many studies that have been devoted to studying…

Exact arithmetic abilities require symbolic numerals, which constitute a precise representation of quantities, such as the Arabic digits. Numerical thinking, however, also engages an intuitive non-linguistic number sense, the Approximate Number System (ANS). The ANS allows us to discriminate quantities, approximate arithmetic transformations, and…

Background: Children's numerical and arithmetic skills differ greatly already at an early age. Although research focusing on accounting for these large individual differences clearly demonstrates that mathematical performance draws upon several cognitive abilities, our knowledge concerning key abilities underlying mathematical skill development is…

Representations of the fingers are embodied in our cognition and influence performance in enumeration tasks. Among deaf signers, the fingers also serve as a tool for communication in sign language. Previous studies in normal hearing (NH) participants showed effects of embodiment (i.e., embodied numerosity) on tactile enumeration using the fingers…

To explain children's difficulties learning fraction arithmetic, Braithwaite et al. (2017) proposed FARRA, a theory of fraction arithmetic implemented as a computational model. The present study tested predictions of the theory in a new domain, decimal arithmetic, and investigated children's use of conceptual knowledge in that domain. Sixth and…