Finger counting boosts kindergarten math performance in new study

Preschool teachers have different views on finger counting. Some teachers consider the use of finger counting in children to mean that they are struggling with math, while others associate its use with advanced numeracy. In a new Child Development Study, researchers at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland and Lea.fr, Editions Nathan in Paris, France, investigated whether a finger counting strategy can help kindergarten children solve number problems.

Adults rarely use their fingers to calculate a small sum (eg, 3+2), as such behaviors could be attributed to pathological math difficulties or cognitive impairments. However, young children between the ages of four and six who use their fingers to solve such problems are recognized as intelligent, probably because they have already reached the level of abstraction that allows them to understand that a quantity can be represented by different means. Only from the age of eight can the use of finger counting to solve very simple problems indicate mathematical difficulties.

The current study aimed to determine whether children who do not count on their fingers can be trained to do so and whether this training would result in improved numerical performance. The study focused on 328 five- and six-year-old kindergarteners (mostly White Europeans living in France) and tested their abilities to solve simple addition problems.

Participating children were recruited through their teachers who volunteered to take part in the experiment. Teachers had to register through a digital pedagogical and collaborative network, Lea.fr, which was used to provide them with the materials and process details to implement the intervention program in their classrooms. The study included a pre-test, a two-week training session, a post-test immediately after the training ended, and a delayed post-test.

The results show a significant increase in performance between pre- and post-test for the trained children who did not count their fingers initially (from 37% to 77% of correct responses) compared to the non-finger users in the control group (from 40% up to 48%). These results were replicated in an experiment with an active control group instead of a passive control group. This is the first study to show that children’s arithmetic performance can be improved through the explicit teaching of a finger counting strategy.

The researchers suggest that since children who use their fingers to help solve math problems perform better than those who don’t, teaching a finger counting strategy could help reduce the disparity between children in math. However, whether children who use finger counting use it as a numerical process or understand something deeper about numbers should be ascertained by future research.

The Society for Research in Child Development had the opportunity to discuss this research with Dr. Catherine Thevenot from the Institute of Psychology of the University of Lausanne.

SRCD: What led you to study finger counting in kindergarten?

Dr. Thevenot: The idea came from conversations with primary school teachers. I have often been asked whether children should be encouraged or discouraged to use their fingers to solve calculations. Surprisingly, the existing research did not offer a clear answer, which left teachers understandably frustrated with my frequent “I don’t know” response. This recurring question, combined with the lack of concrete evidence, inspired me to investigate the matter myself. The best way to provide a meaningful answer was through experimental studies – so that’s exactly what I decided to do.

SRCD: How can these findings be useful for teachers, practitioners and carers?

Dr. Thevenot: Our findings are extremely valuable because, for the first time, we provide a concrete answer to the long-standing question of whether teachers should explicitly teach children to use their fingers to solve addition problems—especially those that do not naturally do so. The answer is yes. Our study shows that finger counting training is effective for over 75% of kindergartners. The next step is to explore how we can support the remaining 25% of children who did not respond as well to the intervention.

SRCD: Did any of the findings surprise you?

Dr. Thevenot: Absolutely. When I first saw the results, I was amazed by the huge improvement in performance among the children who initially did not use their fingers to solve the problems. Before our intervention, these children were only able to solve about one-third of the addition problems at pre-test. After the training, however, they solved more than three quarters! The difference was striking, especially compared to the control groups, where the gains were insignificant. The extent of this improvement really exceeded my expectations.

SRCD: What’s next in this field of research?

Dr. Thevenot: An important question now is to determine whether what we have taught the children goes beyond a simple problem-solving process. In other words, we want to know whether our intervention led to a deeper conceptual understanding of numbers, specifically whether children better understand how to manipulate the quantities represented by their fingers. In fact, we have already begun to address this question, and initial results are promising. However, we still need to conduct additional experiments to confirm that these improvements are indeed a direct result of our training program.