The Difficulty with Number Sense

The development of number sense in children is not automatic & natural as in case of other areas of child development.

It depends a lot on the environment at home & school and social, cultural & economic conditions in the society.

Home Environment

Children acquire number sense at home, over a period of time when they hear number words being used in contexts (Bring two plates, show 2 fingers) repeatedly. They also develop visual pictures or patterns of numbers.

In homes where such interactions are less, the development of number sense could take a longer time or may be less sophisticated.

Societal Conditions 

Anthropological research has revealed existence primitive societies with a very poorly developed sense of numbers.

The Piraha in the Amazon basin & Walpiri in Australia do not seem to have a sense of numerical quantity beyond two.

The Munduruku in the Amazon basin also do not have words for numbers greater than 5. Researchers found that Munduruku speakers did not do well “in exact arithmetic with numbers larger than 4 or 5.”

Their hunter-gatherer life style has very few possessions. Their mutual barter and trade with other such groups does not seem to need the use of numbers beyond a few. Their social & economic life seem to find the ideas one, two & many sufficient for their needs.

One of the reasons these tribes did not develop robust number sense & arithmetic could also be the lack of development of sophisticated language abilities.

Math & Language

There seems to be consensus among scientists, that only humans can mentally represent numbers precisely and with symbols, and that we need some kind of education to do so. Many higher math skills, including arithmetic, depend on the use of language—a symbols-based system—where quantity-based judgments are pre-verbal.

Language also accelerates formation of abstract concepts. Indeed, arithmetic is difficult to do if one does not have the language for it.

Contradicting Visual Messages

In many familiar situations, the “how much” and “how many” sensations contradict each other and confuse the observer.

Take an example of two baskets, one with a handful of seeds and another with two water melons.



“How much” which is the dominant sense tells us that the melons are more. But “how many” should inform us that the seeds are more than the melons!

This can confuse a learner in grasping the idea of “how many”.

The World is getting Mathematical

Our world is changing very fast. Our children are going to live in a digital and information driven world which puts a premium on understanding and using math.

Math has become a vital discipline for understanding this world and leading an empowered & productive life.

In such a world, children who have developed a negative attitude towards math, will be severely handicapped.

Math Gets Complex & Abstract

At the same time the discipline of math itself has been changing rapidly.

In the last few centuries, the discipline of math has been developed by a handful of highly intelligent mathematicians, very rapidly to very abstract levels.

In the last few decades, the objectives of math education in schools have shifted from performing computations to developing abstract thinking.

Math has gone far ahead of the “how many” ability of ordinary humans.

Hence the modes of teaching math in our schools need a drastic change. Ideas in math have to be built on the concept of number sense, layer by complex layer.

Ideas in math have to be built on the foundation of number sense with deliberate and appropriate math instruction.

Number Sense is critical to the future of our children.