Early Ideas in Number and Number Sense
Subitizing (Sight Recognition) – the ability to recognize the number of items in a set without actually
counting them. People are able to see small amounts (usually five or fewer) as a whole and can
perceive the amount without counting. Many preschool students can accurately show “how many” on
their fingers long before they able to count. If you put out four cubes some children will show four
fingers, although they may not be able to verbalize the number.
• Perceptual subitizing – when a child can perceive numbers (five or fewer) without counting.
• Conceptual subitizing – when students perceptually subitize two or more amounts, then
combine the amounts automatically.
Magnitude: Before children know how to count, they are able to tell you which of two sets has more
without counting. Their sense of magnitude is apparent early on.
Conservation of Number – the ability to determine if two sets are equal in number, regardless of the
size, arrangement, or order of the objects in the set. (Considered another way, understanding that
something stays the same in quantity even though its appearance changes.) Piaget described three
stages in the development of conception of number.
• Immature Phase – a child believes the number changes when the shape or size of an
arrangement of objects is changed
• Second Phase – a child knows that the quantity in two equal rows should be the same, but
since the size or length is different, feels the number has changed
• Conservation of Number (around age 7) – a child knows that the number is the same as before
the transformation, no matter how changed the set may appear. They realize the number
doesn’t change when objects are moved because you can return them to their original places.
(Children in this phase can reverse their thinking!) They can show by one-to-one
correspondence that the numbers in the rows are equal.
Hierarchical inclusion: Numbers build by exactly one each time—smaller numbers are part of bigger
numbers. Children who have constructed the idea of hierarchical inclusion know that if you have six
rocks and you take one away, there are five, or if you add a rock, there are seven. It’s the idea of one
more and one less.
Part/whole relationships: Once children begin to understand hierarchical inclusion, they begin to
consider parts of a number. For example, they understand that 6 is made up of 5 and 1, 4 and 2, and 3
and 3.
Compensation: Children begin to see the parts of the whole and then are able to compensate. For
example, if 5 plus 1 equals 6, then I also know that 4 plus 2 equals 6, because 4 is one less than 5, and
2 is one more than 1. One was removed from 5 and was given to the 2 in order to get the same
amount.
Unitizing: As children gain a solid understanding of the preceding early number sense ideas, the idea
of unitizing is constructed as they work with larger numbers (Fosnot and Dolk 2001a, 2001b). Twenty is
made up of nineteen and one, eighteen and two, and so on. Twenty is also made up of two tens—
students make this leap in understanding that they are now using “two” to represent two groups of
something, in this case two groups of ten. The numeral 2 takes on different meanings depending on
where it is in the number.
