Documenti di Didattica
Documenti di Professioni
Documenti di Cultura
GUT
MATH
BACKGROUND
Numerical cognition is the study of how we learn and understand AUDIO
© Pearson Education, Inc., or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
1. mastodon (MAS tuh don) n. giant elephant-like mammal that went extinct during the
Pleistocene epoch.
2. acalculia (ay kal KYOO lee uh) n. inability or the loss of ability to do math.
∠ More yellows or
more blues?
∠ More blues or
more yellows?
© Pearson Education, Inc., or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
Use a digital dictionary or indicate 10 Stanislas Dehaene, who has become a leading researcher of
another strategy yo used that
helped you determine meaning. number sense (or “numerical cognition”)3 since meeting the
innate (ihn NAYT) adj. Approximate Man, agrees with Halberda. He believes that the
MEANING: way math is taught in schools is just as important as our inherent
number sense. In fact, he thinks math education could be a lot
better if teachers took their students’ brain structure into
account.
11 “I believe that there is one brain organization,” Dehaene says.
“We see it in babies, we see it in adults.” For example, he says that
when we think of numbers, we automatically place them on a
number line in our brains. When two numbers are far apart on the
number line, it’s easy for us to tell which is bigger. But when the
numbers are closer together—say, 7 and 8—everyone has to think © Pearson Education, Inc., or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
Works Cited
Cantlon, J. F., and E. M. Brannon. “Animal Arithmetic.” Encyclopedia of
Animal Behavior, edited by N. Clayton, Elsevier Press, 2010, pp. 55–62.
Dehaene, Stanislas. The Number Sense: How the Mind Creates
Mathematics. Oxford UP, 1997.
Geary, David C., et al. “Development of Arithmetical Competencies in
hinese and merican hildren nfluence of e, an ua e, and
Schooling.” Child Development, vol. 67, no. 5, Oct. 1996, pp.
2022–2044.
ipton, ennifer ., and li abeth . pelke. reschool hildren s Mappin
of Number Words to Nonsymbolic Numerosities.” Child Development,
vol. 76, no. 5, Sept./Oct. 2005, pp. 978–988.
tein, ob. ow ne s Number ense elps with Mathematics.
Washington Post, 8 Sept. 2008, p. A5.
© Pearson Education, Inc., or its affiliates. All rights reserved.