Spatial structuring and the development of number sense: A case study of young children working with blocks

This case study discusses an activity that makes up one of five lessons in an ongoing classroom teaching experiment. The goal of the teaching experiment is (a) to gain insight into kindergartners’ spatial structuring abilities, and (b) to design an educational setting that can support kindergartners in becoming aware of spatial structures and in learning to apply spatial structuring as a means to abbreviate and ultimately elucidate numerical procedures. This paper documents children's spatial structuring of three-dimensional block constructions and the teacher's role in guiding the children's learning processes. The episodes have contributed to developing the activity into a lesson that could foster children's use of spatial structure for determining the number of blocks. The observations complement existing research that relates spatial structuring to mathematical performance, with additional insight into the development of number sense of particularly young children in a regular classroom setting.

Research highlights▶ Young children exhibit strong spatial skills that can be fostered in school to promote spatial structuring strategies as alternatives to unitary counting procedures. ▶ Teachers can support young children's spatial structuring ability and insight into numerical relations using activities with blocks. ▶ An educational setting can be improved through more accurate language use and through appropriate guidance of the class.