FoNS innebär att vara medveten om och att kunna göra jämförelser mellan mängder med olika antal objekt (Clarke & Shinn, 2004; Griffin, 2004; Ivrendi, 2011; Jordan et al., 2006; Jordan & Levine, 2009; Yang & Li, 2008) med hjälp av begrepp som fler än och färre än (Gersten et al., 2005) samt lika med. FoNS-medvetna barn förstår att åtta representerar fler än sex men färre än tio (Lembke & Foegen, 2009). Barn med denna förståelse har förmågan att koppla ihop räkneord med antal objekt i en mängd och räknar inte längre endast mekaniskt genom att upprepa en memorerad lista av tal (Lipton & Spelke, 2005). Att vara medveten om och kunna jämföra storlek på mängder har visat sig vara en indikator på generell matematisk förmåga, oavsett ålder (Aunio & Niemivirta, 2010; De Smedt et al., 2013; Desoete et al., 2012; Holloway & Ansari, 2009; Nan et al., 2006; Stock et al., 2010).
Referenser:
Aunio, P., & Niemivirta, M. (2010). Predicting children's mathematical performance in grade one by early numeracy. Learning and Individual Differences, 20(5), 427-435.
Clarke, B., & Shinn, M. (2004). A preliminary investigation into the identification and development of early mathematics curriculum-based measurement. School Psychology Review, 33(2), 234-248.
Desoete, A., Ceulemans, A., De Weerdt, F., & Pieters, S. (2012). Can we predict mathematical learning disabilities from symbolic and non-symbolic comparison tasks in kindergarten? Findings from a longitudinal study. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 82(1), 64-81.
De Smedt, B., Noël, M.-P., Gilmore, C., & Ansari, D. (2013). How do symbolic and non-symbolic numerical magnitude processing skills relate to individual differences in children's mathematical skills? A review of evidence from brain and behavior. Trends in Neuroscience and Education, 2(2), 48-55.
Gersten, R., Jordan, N., & Flojo, J. (2005). Early identification and interventions for students with mathematics difficulties. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 38(4), 293-304.
Griffin, S. (2004). Building number sense with Number Worlds: A mathematics program for young children. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 19(1), 173-180.
Holloway, I., & Ansari, D. (2009). Mapping numerical magnitudes onto symbols: The numerical distance effect and individual differences in children’s mathematics achievement. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 103(1), 17-29.
Ivrendi, A. (2011). Influence of self-regulation on the development of children’s number sense. Early Childhood Education Journal, 39(4), 239-247.
Jordan, N.., & Levine, S. (2009). Socioeconomic variation, number competence, and mathematics learning difficulties in young children. Developmental Disabilities Research Reviews, 15(1), 60-68.
Jordan, N., Kaplan, D., Nabors Oláh, L., & Locuniak, M. (2006). Number sense growth in kindergarten: A longitudinal investigation of children at risk for mathematics difficulties. Child Development, 77(1), 153-175.
Lembke, E., & Foegen, A. (2009). Identifying early numeracy indicators for kindergarten and first-grade students. Learning Disabilities Research & Practice, 24(1), 12-20.
Lipton, J., & Spelke, E. (2005). Preschool children's mapping of number words to nonsymbolic numerosities. Child Development, 76(5), 978-988.
Nan, Y., Knösche, T., & Luo, Y.-J. (2006). Counting in everyday life: Discrimination and enumeration. Neuropsychologica, 44(7), 1103-1113.
Stock, P., Desoete, A., & Roeyers, H. (2010). Detecting children with arithmetic disabilities from kindergarten: Evidence from a 3-year longitudinal study on the role of preparatory arithmetic abilities. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 43(3), 250-268.
Yang, D.-C., & Li, M.-N. (2008). An investigation of 3rd-grade Taiwanese students' performance in number sense. Educational Studies, 34(5), 443 - 455.