Girls are more likely than boys to use counting strategies rather than higher-level mental strategies to solve arithmetic problems. Prior research suggests that dependence on counting strategies may have negative implications for girls' later math achievement. We investigated the relation between first-grade girls' verbal and spatial skills and…

Counting abilities have been described as determinative precursors for a good development of later arithmetic abilities. Mastery of the stable order, the one-one-correspondence and the cardinality principles can be seen as essential features for the development of counting abilities. Mastery of the counting principles in kindergarten was assessed…

Children's symbolic number sense was examined at the beginning of first grade with a short screen of competencies related to counting, number knowledge, and arithmetic operations. Conventional mathematics achievement was then assessed at the end of both first and third grades. Controlling for age and cognitive abilities (i.e., language, spatial,…