Recently, many parents have mentioned a problem to the editor: when children do calculations, they can't help counting with their fingers. But these parents don't know how to guide their children.
Then I conduct a research online and find that many parents are troubled by how to help their children get rid of the "finger counting" habit. In their opinion, it seems a silly way to calculate. And they hope their children can drop it.
Finger counting is not a silly way to calculate, but a useful teaching aid for children！It can help children improve their mathematical thinking skills.
In response to these confusions, I wrote this article with some suggestions and methods. I hope it can be helpful.
1. There is a reason why children like counting with their fingers when calculating.
In life, you may have had this situation: when you ask a child about his or her age, he/she shows four fingers and says "I'm four years old."
Preschoolers count their fingers, and this act of learning to use the number of fingers to represent age numbers is a part of children's early process to combine numbers and shapes. It's a very normal phenomenon. Because at this stage, children have not yet developed abstract thinking. They need to use some physical objects to correspond with the number, such as fingers.
The same goes for calculating ‘one plus one equals two’. Since children at this stage cannot calculate abstract numbers directly in their brains, they need to use physical objects to visualize the numbers, such as their fingers, and then do the calculations. If children are not allowed to calculate with the help of any physical objects right at the beginning, they really can't understand!
2. Finger counting is in line with the development of children's thinking.
We draw this conclusion from Cognitive Developmental Theory. In this book, psychologist Piaget divided children's cognitive development into four stages: the sensorimotor stage (0-2 years old), the pre-operational stage (2-7 years old), the concrete operational stage (7-11 years old), and the formal operational stage (11 years old and above).
Children who like to count their fingers when calculating are in the pre-operational stage (2-7 years old). This stage is the developmental period of imaginal thinking, where children's cognitive and learning approaches rely entirely on concrete things and the senses to acquire.
In addition, Professor Jo Boaler of Stanford University also found in her research that finger-assisted counting can help children learn math better, while forcing children to drop the habit is likely to hinder the development of their math skills.
Therefore, finger counting is an important process of transition for children from imagery to abstract thinking, which is completely in line with the cognitive rules of children. Parents don't need to worry too much.
3. How many years old is it normal to calculate by counting fingers?
Since there are individual differences in each child's learning ability, there is no specific age limit for this question.
In general, girls will end the finger-counting period earlier than boys; children who are early exposed to mathematical thinking enlightenment will end finger-counting earlier than those who are not.
But if a child has been used to counting figures for more than six months and instinctively stretches out fingers to count when he or she calculates, you need to pay attention to that.
At this time, parents need to use some scientific and appropriate methods to guide their children according to their cognitive rules.
4. How to guide your child to count fingers properly?
To let children get rid of finger-counting calculation, you can't directly stop them. It's a process to enhance thinking skills, so you need to use some tips to promote this enhancement.
You can ask your child like this: "Sweetheart, I give you two candies and daddy give you three candies, and how many candies do you have in total?"
At this point, the child will usually have the following three ways to solve your problem:
（1）Count from the first finger, then count the second fingers and so on.
（2）Count directly from two fingers, then extend three fingers to represent the three candies given by daddy, resulting in five candies.
（3）Directly use addition. 2 + 3 = 5, so five candies in total.
And parents need to refer to the above steps to guide children step by step, so that they can find the rule by practice: "the two candies are fixed, just need to add the three candies given later. And they don't need to count fingers one by one". This will naturally lead to the next step, thus allowing their thinking skills to improve gradually.so that the child will naturally move to the next step.
In addition to the above methods, there are many other ways to help children learn to calculate.
5. Use the number line to calculate.
By teaching children to use the number line to learn calculations, they will understand operation rules better.
The number line has scales and numbers. Going to the left, the number is gradually smaller, and going to the right, the number is gradually larger. In fact, so does finger counting. For example, to calculate 5+4, first look at the number line from 0 to the right to find the number 5, and then count 4 squares to the right. So we can get the number 9, thus concluding that 5+4 = 9.
Note: When calculating by number line, it is best to have your children read aloud while counting: "1, 2, 3, 4, 5 to the right, then 1, 2, 3, 4 to the right further, here is 9." This will allow your children to correspond the concrete grid with the abstract numbers one by one, which will better help children improve thinking skills and start learning abstract mathematics.
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