Defining FoNS has involved an extensive and systematic review of several hundred peer-reviewed articles focused on the number-related skills research has shown to be necessary for children in kindergarten and year one. The intention was not to construct an extensive list of characteristic learning outcomes, but a small set of simple to operationalise categories. This process yielded eight categories and placed, for example, rote counting to five and rote counting to ten within a broad category of systematic counting. The FoNS categories are not unrelated, otherwise there is always the risk that children can count but not know that four is bigger than two.  

  1. Number recognition

  2. Systematic counting

  3. Awareness of the relationship between number and quantity

  4. Quantity discrimination

  5. Understanding of different representations of number

  6. Estimation

  7. Simple arithmetic competence

  8. Awareness of number patterns