The Herald Online – John Higgins
“On a recent morning in South Seattle, Kristin Alfonzo challenged her preschoolers to make the number 7 using beads strung across two rows of pipe cleaners. One 5-year-old boy slid four beads across the top and three across the bottom. Another did the reverse, and one kid pushed all seven on one row. “I see many different ways of making 7!” Alfonzo said over the ruckus of kids counting out loud. Preschools typically leave math for grade school, in the belief that 4- and 5-year-olds aren’t old enough to understand what 7 stands for. Decades of brain science now show that waiting is a mistake. Even in the crib, research shows, infants can tell the difference between eight dots and 16 using an innate “number sense” we share with other species that helps us make some size comparisons without counting. By the time they are preschool age, students like the ones in Alfonzo’s class can grasp simple addition – three beads plus four beads makes seven beads – even if they can’t yet write the equations.”(more)