Children are born with an ability to recognize sets of 1, 2, and 3 items, and with support, they can quickly name “how many” for collections of 4, 5, and sometimes more objects without counting one by one. This kind of visual number sense empowers children and fosters a meaningful understanding of quantity.
© Erikson Institute’s Early Math Collaborative. Reprinted from Big Ideas of Early Mathematics: What Teachers of Young Children Need to Know (2014), Pearson Education.