By Stephen Beech
Finger-counting is a key “stepping stone” to higher math ability for youngsters, say scientists.
Children who count on their fingers between the ages of four- and six-and-a-half years old have better addition skills by age seven than those who don’t use their fingers, according to new research.
The study, published in the journal Developmental Psychology, suggests that finger-counting – frowned on by some teachers – is an important step towards solving more complex mathematical calculations.
Study lead author Dr. Catherine Thevenot said: “Finger counting is not just a tool for immediate success in young children, but a way to support the development of advanced abstract arithmetic skills.”
Finger counting is widely used by young children as a way to solve math problems.
But many teachers expect children to move on from finger counting at a very young age.
One French study found that 30% of first-grade teachers view it as a sign that a child is struggling to understand numerical concepts.
Previous research generally only assessed children at one point in time and found that youngsters who use their fingers to count perform better in arithmetic than those who don’t – until about the age of seven.
After that age, the relationship reverses and children who don’t use their fingers perform better than those who do.
But what remained unclear was whether the non-finger users at age seven had never used their fingers, or whether they were “former finger users” who had moved on from the practice.
Dr. Thevenot, of the University of Lausanne in Switzerland, said: “Our study aimed to clarify this distinction and to better understand what finger use, or its absence, truly reveals about children’s arithmetic development.”
To do so, she and her colleague Dr. Marie Krenger followed 211 Swiss children from ages four-and-a-half to seven-and-a-half to assess how their finger-counting strategies changed over time and how they related to mathematical skill.
Twice a year, the researchers asked the children to answer up to three sets of addition problems of increasing difficulty: adding two digits between one and five, adding one digit between one and five to another between six and nine, and adding two digits between six and nine.
At each test, the researchers only moved on to the next level of difficulty if the child was able to answer 80% of the previous set correctly.
The research team videotaped the children and observed whether they used their fingers during the addition tasks.
Overall, they found that finger counting peaked around age five-and-a-half to six years old.
Up to age five, more children added without their fingers than with them.
However, by age six-and-a-half, 92% of children had used their fingers during at least one testing point.
By age seven-and-a-half, 43% of children were “ex-finger counters” – they had used their fingers during at least one test but no longer did – while 50% were current finger counters and only 7% had never counted on their fingers.
Overall, the researchers found that the highest-performing children were those who had used their fingers in the past but no longer relied on them.
From age six onwards, the former finger users outperformed both children who had never used their fingers and those who still used them.
Dr. Thevenot said: “This has important implications, as it shows that there is no reason to discourage children in school from using their fingers to solve arithmetic problems on the grounds that this strategy could prevent them from shifting to faster, internalized procedures once the numbers become too large to be represented on fingers.”
She added: “This research supports encouraging children to use their fingers in arithmetic without fear that they will become stuck in limited strategies.”
