Early math concepts: matching, classifying, comparing, and ordering (seriation)

The following are four types of mathematical knowledge that children often develop in early childhood. These may happen spontaneously, depending on the child and their context, but they also can be encouraged through simple conversation and daily activities. All four types of knowledge provide a strong foundation for when children begin to learn more formal mathematics in school.

Matching:

• Is the foundation of meaningful counting as children learn that each number is a symbol for a quantity of objects.
• Involves one to one correspondence, to put items together in pairs.

Example:  A child is sorting out shells and stones because they want to make sure everyone in the group has the same number of each in order to play a game. They match each stone with a shell until they have enough sets for everyone.

Classifying:

• Has to do with “sameness”.
• Children develop the ability to put (sort) objects into sets based on similarities.
• A set is any well-defined group of objects or ideas.
• Young children usually sort by colour before they sort by any other characteristic.

Example: A four-year-old is helping their parent wash clothes. The parent gives the child the job of putting all the socks together in a pile and all the shirts in another pile. The child is classifying the clothes as part of either the shirt group or the sock group.

Comparing:

• Has to do with “difference”.
• Children compare items that are opposites before they consider other types of differences.
• Children may compare items based on their qualities/characteristics or the quantity.

Example: A four-year-old says to their caregiver, “You gave him more rice than you gave me. They have a bigger dish.”

Ordering (Seriation):

• Involves putting three or more objects into a sequence.
• Is the foundation of our number system (1, 2, 3, 4, etc.).
• Common ways to order:
  • Size (little to big)
  • Length (short to long)
  • Height (short to tall)
  • Width (thin to thick)
• Ordering two sets is called double seriation

Example: Two five-year-olds are playing with some leaves they have found. They decide to lay them in a line in order from smallest to largest.