Improving Low-Income Children's Number Sense

This article describes how a theoretical analysis and empirical findings regarding number sense led to the development of an educational intervention that produces large and rapid increases in low-income children's mathematical knowledge. Roughly an hour of playing a simple numerical board game based on the mental number line construct led to substantial gains in their knowledge of numerical magnitudes, counting, numeral identification, number line estimation, and arithmetic. The gains remained present two months after the last game-playing session. Both physical features of the game board and the way in which children interact with it proved important in the size of the gains. Reasons why such a brief intervention produces such substantial learning were discussed.