Understanding Numbers

A child being able to count—saying “1, 2, 3”—doesn’t necessarily mean they understand what they’re doing.

For younger children, counting is at first just a pattern they are following, and sometimes they get that pattern wrong (younger kids will often say “twenty-eight, twenty-nine, twenty-ten.”). But to actually understand numbers is to understand that they represent concrete things in the world. But how do you know if a child understands it in that way?

Bridging this gap between behavior, repeating a pattern, and true understanding is what Joonkoo Parks’ research at UMass Amherst focuses on. He’s been studying how children acquire number knowledge, and the studies he’s developed to try and decode and pinpoint what children are actually understanding when they’re counting and working with numbers. 

Numbers are symbolic representations of real things in the world (as opposed to, say, the concept of “love” or “fairness” which can be subjective). And numbers are combinatorial, meaning you can group them to make counting easier (5, 10, 15, 20 or 10, 20, 30, 40 etc). He’s found that children who understand this about numbers are able to count higher and demonstrate real understanding of the concept of numbers, not just do simple pattern replication.

There’s so much more about this research and the fascinating implications about human behavior and learning, but part of my job as a filmmaker is distilling and refining information to get to the essence and effectively communicate that. This was the biggest challenge in making a video for Joon and his team, who needed a  public-facing video that could help translate some of their research findings for parents. His team was hoping to be able to communicate their science to a braoder audience and encourage parents to engage with their children around numbers and counting in different ways. 

If you find this as fascinating as I do, you can see the full video below:

https://vimeo.com/1174014513