A study on counting patterns in preschool children (4-5 years old)

Abstract

Counting is one of the first mathematical concepts that children learn. Children learn to count both formally and informally through interaction with others in their environment Most of the children learn the mathematical concept counting during the pre-school stage. There are research findings (Huges, 1986) which show that most of the preschool children face the problem of counting. The objectives of the study: 1. Examine the patterns of counting numbers applied by the preschool children. 2. Identify the differences of counting patterns of boys and girls in the sample. 3. Identify the pattern of counting errors made by the children in the sample. Target population for the study comprised preschool children. Representative sample was selected from the Western province. Stratified random sampling method was used for selecting the sample of preschools and simple random sampling method was used for selecting 10 children from each class. The research has established some major facts which need to be tested in a larger scale sample which would cover more than one province. On the other hand this sample researched only the areas in the Western province which records a higher stage of development in human and physical capital which other provinces of the country have achieved unevenly. And therefore the findings should not be taken for granted for the whole country. According to the findings we can sate that teaching instruction procedure has to be designed to eliminate the problems encountered by the preschool child when counting numbers. Further the teacher has to pay individual attention on children and he/she should provide practice session to children on the pronunciation of number words. Further the study points at the parental and teacher caring of the children in guiding children to acquire the basic mathematical and language skills b y using correct language with children preparing necessary environmental factors.