Museum of Science, Boston

Math and Language Cognition

Language and math are important tools that allow humans to better understand the world around them, and communicate with one another. Some cognitive scientists are interested in learning more about how children develop language skills and conceptions about basic math principles, and how the development of math and language skills in early childhood might be interrelated.

Vertical number line

Why do young children think small numbers are huge?

Most kindergartners aren’t very good at estimating the size of numbers. They often overestimate the size of smaller numbers, but think that larger numbers are all about the same size. In fact, it is not until sometime between second and fourth grade that most children accurately estimate the magnitude of numbers between 0-100. Recent studies suggest that at this stage in development, children begin to imagine numbers along a horizontal number line, with small numbers on the left and large numbers on the right. In this study, we want to know how children use mental images of number lines to estimate the size of numbers.

In this study, we ask children between kindergarten and fourth grade to estimate the size of different numbers using a number line. We show children a vertical number line with the bottom end labeled 0 and the top end labeled either 100 or 1000, and then we ask them to mark where different numbers would be positioned on the line.

We predict that young children might find it easier to estimate numbers using a vertical number line than a left-to-right horizontal number line. If so, our results would have implications for the kinds of images that are used to teach young children about numbers (for example, teachers may want to describe numbers using a thermometer rather than a ruler).

This study will help us learn more about how young children think about numbers, and may help parents and teachers find more effective strategies to teach children about numbers.

Learn about other research related to Math and Language Cognition.

This research is conducted by the Thinking and Learning Lab at Boston College's Lynch School of Education

Try it at the Museum

How tall are you?

Try measuring your height on the Discovery Center’s height chart! The ruler on the wall is one kind of vertical number line. Can you estimate how tall you will be before you measure yourself? Can you estimate how tall someone else will be? Make a prediction and test it out! Use the ruler on the wall to measure your height, and then place a chip in the graph around the corner. How tall were most people in the Discovery Center today?

Try it at Home

Estimating objects

Find a bunch of small objects around your house: paperclips, forks and spoons, pencils, or anything else you have around. Place a few of them on the ground – can your child tell you how many objects there are? Now grab a large handful and place them on the ground. When there are a lot of objects, can you and your child make a guess about how many are in the pile? Make a guess and then count them to see if you are correct. Try again with an even larger handful of objects. Are you more or less accurate when there are more objects in the pile?