Finger Counting: A Great Tool or a Hindering Habit

People are born with a great counting tool right on their own body. Fingers are great for young children first learning to count, add, and subtract. Neuroscientists and educators agree that children who learn to use their fingers as a mathematical tool in the early years will experience more success in math than those who don’t.  Jo Boaler, professor of mathematics education at Stanford Graduate School of Education and author of What’s Math Got To Do With It? (2009) and The Elephant in the Classroom (2010) wrote a great article about finger counting The Atlantic in April 2016.

Benefits of finger counting include:
1.     A visual and kinesthetic tool always available
2.     Increased retention of number facts
3.     Increased numerical understanding
4.     Internalizing the concept of quantities being comprised of smaller units of quantities, such as 7=5+2

Does Finger Counting have Limitations?
There are methods of using fingers for doing complex calculations. These methods are fascinating and they are completely different from using each finger to represent one unit. They are more comparable to using an abacus. If you are interested, search youtube.com for “abacus finger calculations” or “chisanbop.” These systems require special training and are not what educators typically mean when they refer to finger counting. The rest of this article refers to finger counting the way young children use it, with each finger representing 1 unit or counting one by one.

When Should Children Stop Counting on Their Fingers?
Finger counting is a great tool for thinking in single units with quantities under 10. It can be used for counting forward and backward. It is impossible to do difficult calculations such as 1,652 x 21 using the fingers as representative of units of 1. After all we only have 10 fingers to use!

Using the fingers to count is a tool and it should not be taken away while the tool is still helpful. Sometimes, however, a person’s skills outgrow the usefulness of the tool. When this happens, sometimes the tools are dropped naturally and new tools are adopted. Other times the old tool remains as a handy stand-by.

Think of children learning to feed themselves. It’s a messy affair as babies begin using their first tool, their hand. They often shove fistfuls of carrot puree into their mouth. They eventually learn to scoop with a spoon and stab with a fork. By preschool they can spread with a butter knife, and then later, cut with a sharper knife. So what happens when you give an older child applesauce? Hopefully they don’t resort to shoving fistfuls of it into their mouth! They know which tools to use and when to use them.

Moving Beyond One-by-One
People adept at mental math rarely operate in one-by-one calculations. These are more prone to errors and take a long time. If you compare the skill of reading to the skill of calculating, one-by-one calculating is the same as sounding out a word letter-by-letter instead of recognizing the word as a whole. By recognizing common numerical relationships of mathematics and using logic, both accuracy and efficiency increases. If a child is still using finger counting into 3rd grade, one of three scenarios is occurring. A quick and dirty way to check which scenario is true for your child is to ask them to solve 100-14. Watch them and ask them about their strategy for solving it.

1. If they start counting backwards from 100, they are likely using their fingers because they haven’t developed sufficient number sense and numerical fluency. They are stuck calculating in a one-by-one mode. This is a big problem for any child in 3rd grade and higher. Immediate intervention is needed! Bring the child into Mathnasium of Littleton so they can develop their numerical fluency and build foundational skills. You may also want to look at our article about mathematical reasoning.
2. A child who has moved just beyond the one-by-one stage may approach 100-14 like this: 100-10 is 90 and then use their fingers to count 4 backwards by ones from 90. They are starting to think in larger chunks, but they still like to use their fingers as a back-up tool. This is like the toddler who can use a spoon or fork but sometimes gets frustrated and impatient and so reverts to their hands. Children in this stage should be gently encouraged to develop more efficient strategies. They would still benefit from supplemental math education to improve speed, accuracy and confidence.
3. A child who thinks 100-15 is 85 and so 100-14 is 86 and just puts up one finger is thinking in much larger chunks. The finger might be a relic of old habits and by itself is nothing to be concerned about. This is like the older child who consistently and correctly uses silverware but reverts to using their hands when they think their mom isn’t watching. You may want to encourage them to abandon the habit for social reasons, but it isn’t holding them back mathematically.

A Better Assessment
Mathnasium of Littleton offers completely, risk-free, comprehensive assessments. These assessments will give you an accurate picture of your child’s mathematical strengths and weaknesses.  If you are concerned about your child using their fingers, give us a call or text us and schedule an assessment today! 303-979-9077 you can also use this link to schedule an assessment yourself.