Subitizing
Benefits
Understanding number sense
Age
after 3.5 years
Materials needed
Any set of items- fruits, spoon etc. Paper, pen, colors.
Subitizing
Subitizing is a straightforward concept with the tricky word(at least to me!!). It is the ability to find the number of items or recognizing the number of things without counting them. Yeah!!! You got it right. If there are a certain number of the same items, we usually count and find the number of items. But finding it without the count is called subitizing. And yes!!! Only a small set of items. We can say 5 or 6 maximum for adults and a maximum of 4 for children. It is a little hard to find the number if it goes beyond that. But with the subitizing concept, we can find them too. Let’s have a look at them.
We can look subitizing into two ways.
1.Perceptual subitizing.
2.Conceptual subitizing
Perceptual subitizing
It is said to be visually recognizing a pattern instantly. Say, for example, If we have six apples, our mind quickly groups them into the category of 4 and 2. This quick visual sorting of any large group of items is called perceptual subitizing. If we look at any big group of objects (be it dots, real items, images, etc.), we sort them in small groups without counting. It seems so interesting, right!!!. Please go and check it right away. It was fun, indeed.
Conceptual Subitizing
Conceptual subitizing is understanding and recognizing a small group of items and adding them together. Say, adding the two groups which we found and said as perceptual subitizing.
Adding these two groups is said to be conceptual subitizing. 4+2 = 6.
It is our natural ability to do such thing. At the same time, it is good to introduce the concept as activities helps the child to sharpen the memory even more. Interested in looking at our activities. Scroll down to have a look at few simple activities which we did together.
Activities to practice subitizing
We did few activities to practice subitizing. Let’s have a look at them.
- Pic-1-Make a dots for 1 to 5 on both sides and ask the child to draw a line to match it
- Pic-2 - Same method , instead of drawing line take two sets and let the child match second set with the first
- We made a grid matching activity to understand the subitizing concept
- Write the number on column and different colors on row
- Make slips with dots from numbers 1 to 4 .
- Let the match the slips as per number and color
- This is a great visual discrimination and subitizing activity for preschool kids
Other Ways to practice Subitizing:
- While being at home, ask the child to say the number of items without counting. Say, for example, how many mobiles are there, how many spoons are there, etc.
- Don’t stress out, though; start with a minimum number, say 1.
- While doing a counting activity, we can try this. Will be more useful