Design and Evaluation of a Systematic Finger-based Intervention for Early Mathematical Skills in 5- to 6-Year-Olds

Early mathematical skills are building blocks for later mathematics achievement in school. Recently, the use of fingers in early mathematical instruction received increasing attention as a prominent example of embodied cognition. Accordingly, the present study aimed to develop and evaluate a finger-based intervention for early mathematical skills such as counting and magnitude understanding and basic arithmetic (involving 12 sessions of 30 minutes each) that systematically aligns with early mathematical development. In a pre-posttest intervention design, 33 5-to-6-year-old children received the finger-based mathematical intervention and were compared to children of a business-as-usual control group (n=37). Results indicated a significant medium-sized beneficial effect on early mathematical skills, whereas no significant improvements were observed for spatial working memory or general cognitive ability. This suggests that the intervention was both effective and specific to facilitating early mathematical competencies. Interestingly, actual finger use when doing basic arithmetic developed comparably, irrespective of whether children received or did not receive the finger-based intervention, while finger users consistently outperformed non-finger-users in early mathematical skills irrespective of group assignment. Taken together, these findings highlight finger-based strategies as a powerful and beneficial approach for fostering the development of early mathematical skills.