Researchers at the University of Illinois have made a discovery that may seriously shape how educators approach early math. In a study published in Cognition, psychology professor Daniel Hyde tested a group of first graders’ basic intuitions about numbers.
The results of his study indicated kids who were routinely exposed to groups of items of different quantities and asked to use approximation to predict which group was bigger or smaller performed significantly better on a math test administered shortly afterwards than children who did not participate in an approximation exercise.
