Question: Our children have just naturally used their fingers to count and solve simple math problems. Now our child's first-grade teacher wants her to stop doing this, saying it is babyish. I strongly disagree. Do you have any evidence about the benefits of young children using their fingers? -- For Finger Counting
Answer: Many teachers feel exactly the same way as your child's teacher about children using their fingers in math class and want them to stop using them. They apparently are wrong. Recent research in neuroscience has completely contradicted this viewpoint. In fact, Jo Boaler, an education professor at Stanford University, has written that evidence from both behavioral and neuroscience studies show that when people receive training on ways to perceive and represent their own fingers, they get better at doing so, which leads to higher mathematics achievement.
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