{"id":3716,"date":"2025-11-21T15:04:55","date_gmt":"2025-11-21T15:04:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bangbizarre.com\/index.php\/2025\/11\/21\/finger-counting-can-boost-childs-maths-skills\/"},"modified":"2025-11-21T15:04:57","modified_gmt":"2025-11-21T15:04:57","slug":"finger-counting-can-boost-childs-maths-skills","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bangbizarre.com\/index.php\/2025\/11\/21\/finger-counting-can-boost-childs-maths-skills\/","title":{"rendered":"Finger-counting can boost child\u2019s maths skills"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><b>2025-11-21 15:04:54<\/b><br \/>\n<BR>Finger-counting \u2013 long dismissed as a \u201cbabyish\u201d crutch \u2013 may actually supercharge young children\u2019s maths abilities, a new study claims.<BR><br \/>\nResearchers say teachers should stop scolding pupils for using their hands, arguing that those wiggling digits are building the foundations of stronger mental arithmetic. <BR><br \/>\nThe findings, from the University of Lausanne and published in Developmental Psychology, suggest finger-counting is an \u201cimportant stepping stone to higher maths skills\u201d.<BR><br \/>\nThe Swiss team followed 211 children aged 4\u00bd to 7\u00bd, tracking how often they used their fingers while tackling progressively harder sums. <BR><br \/>\nContrary to classroom scepticism, the pupils who counted on their fingers early on \u2013 and naturally phased out the habit by around age seven \u2013 became the strongest mathematicians.<BR><br \/>\nLead author Catherine Thevenot said: &#8220;There is no reason to discourage children in school from using their fingers to solve arithmetic problems.\u201d <BR><br \/>\nPreventing finger-use too early, she warned, &#8220;could prevent them from shifting to faster, internalised procedures once the numbers become too large to be represented on fingers&#8221;.<BR><br \/>\nThe study found finger use peaked between 5\u00bd and 6, when most children relied on their hands. By 7\u00bd, half no longer counted on their fingers, 43 per cent still did, and seven per cent had never used their fingers at all. <BR><br \/>\nCrucially, the biggest performers at age seven were those who used their fingers early, then stopped naturally \u2013 outscoring both lifelong finger-counters and those who never used the strategy.<BR><br \/>\nScientists believe finger-counting gives the brain a visual grasp of numerical size, strengthening number concepts and mirroring the base-10 system rooted in our ten fingers.<BR><br \/>\nDespite this, nearly a third of Year 2 teachers in the study viewed finger-counting as a sign of struggle. Researchers say that attitude needs to change.<BR><br \/>\nAs the team concluded: encouraging finger-use isn\u2019t a setback \u2013 it\u2019s the launchpad for better maths.<br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/bangbizarre.com\/\" target=\"_blank\"> Visit Bang Bizarre (main website) <\/a><br \/>\n<br \/><script src=\"https:\/\/geo.dailymotion.com\/player\/xtbac.js\" data-video=\"\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>2025-11-21 15:04:54 Finger-counting \u2013 long dismissed as a \u201cbabyish\u201d crutch \u2013 may actually supercharge young children\u2019s maths abilities, a new study claims. Researchers say teachers should stop scolding pupils for&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3717,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3716","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bizarre"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bangbizarre.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3716","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bangbizarre.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bangbizarre.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bangbizarre.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bangbizarre.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3716"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/bangbizarre.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3716\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3718,"href":"https:\/\/bangbizarre.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3716\/revisions\/3718"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bangbizarre.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3717"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bangbizarre.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3716"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bangbizarre.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3716"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bangbizarre.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3716"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}