It’s a numbers game

Numerical literacy is a skill that your tot will take with him throughout life. Here’s how to get him started.

If you always thought that mathematics only revolved around numbers, well, think again. There are a myriad concepts that make up maths that can help to prepare your toddler for school-related mathematics. They are fairly basic once you know them. Pre-arithmetic readiness includes memory and sequencing abilities, the ability to understand shape, form and volume. It requires the child’s understanding of size, position, length and quantity.

STAGES OF LEARNING

Italian physician and educator Maria Montessori found that learning about numbers requires three stages:

1 THE ABILITY TO SORT OBJECTS INTO SETS

Before your child can identify, for example, three cars as being part of the same set, he needs to understand why they belong together. To do this, he needs to recognise the properties that cars have in common, like four wheels and a particular shape.

2 THE ABILITY TO MATCH OR PAIR ONE SET OF OBJECTS WITH ANOTHER SET

There is one plastic animal in one set and one shell in another set. Give your child another animal and another shell, and see if he can match them with the first set into pairs, so he will have two animals and two shells.

3 THE ABILITY TO COMPARE

A child needs to understand that two pebbles are fewer than three pebbles, and that four are greater than three. Once he can do this, he can put things in an order. Understanding position and sequence is essential to understanding numbers and mathematics.