Investigating Children’s Abilities to Count and Make Quantitative Comparisons

This study was designed to investigate children’s abilities to count and make quantitative comparisons. In addition, this study utilized reasoning questions (i.e., how did you know?). Thirty-four preschoolers, mean age 4.5 years old, participated in the study. According to the results, 89 % of the children (n = 30) were able to do rote counting and 70 % (n = 24) were able to do rational counting. When children were asked how they knew how many objects were in a set, 30 responded that they used a counting strategy. Sixty-five percent of children (n = 22) answered ‘‘zero’’ when no block was given and 21 children answered ‘‘nothing’’ when they were asked what zero meant to them. About quantitative comparisons, 65 % of children (n = 22) answered correctly when they were asked more and less questions