Finger counting builds numerical foundation first, then naturally fades as children develop advanced mental math abilities.
Washington — A study by the American Psychological Association shows that kids aged 4 to 6½ who count on their fingers are better at addition by the time they turn 7. This suggests finger counting is an important step in developing stronger math skills.
“Finger counting isn’t just a short-term tool for kids. It helps build advanced math-thinking abilities,” said Catherine Thevenot PhD, the lead researcher from the University of Lausanne in Switzerland.
Little kids often use their fingers to help solve math problems. Still, many elementary teachers believe students should stop relying on this method. A French study found that 30% of first-grade teachers see finger counting as a sign that kids are having trouble understanding numbers.
Past studies examined kids’ math skills at a single point in time. They showed that children who counted on their fingers were better at math than those who didn’t, but only until about age 7. After this age, kids who didn’t count with their fingers started doing better. This raised the question of whether these successful non-finger counters at age 7 had never used the method at all, or had used it and then stopped.
Thevenot explained that their research aimed to study this difference and better understand what the use or lack of finger counting reveals about how children develop their arithmetic skills.
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To study this, Thevenot and her research partner, Marie Krenger PhD, carried out a long-term study involving 211 Swiss kids aged between 4½ and 7½ (pre-K to second grade). They looked into how the children’s use of finger counting changed over time and how it related to their math skills. Every six months, the team gave the children up to three levels of addition problems, getting harder each time. The first level involved adding two numbers between 1 and 5. The second combined a number from 1 to 5 with one from 6 to 9. The hardest level included adding two numbers between 6 and 9. Kids could move on to the next level if they answered at least 80% of the problems at their current level.
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The researchers filmed the children and tracked how they used their fingers while solving addition problems. They found that finger counting was most common between the ages of 5 and 6. Before turning 5 most kids solved addition problems without relying on their fingers. By the time they reached 6 and a half though, 92% had used finger counting in at least one test. When the kids hit 7 and a half years old, 43% had stopped using their fingers for counting, 50% still used them, and 7% had never used finger counting at all.
The study found that kids who used finger counting earlier but moved away from it later showed the best math skills. By age 6, these kids outperformed both those who never used finger counting and those who still depended on it.
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Thevenot stated, “These results have important lessons for education. There’s no solid reason to stop kids from using their fingers to solve math problems just because people think it might slow down their ability to handle harder mental calculations as they encounter more complex numbers. Our study encourages letting children use their fingers when learning math without fearing it will hold them back from developing advanced problem-solving skills.”
Source:
American Psychological Association (November 20, 2025). For young children, finger-counting a stepping stone to higher math skills. https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2025/11/finger-counting-higher-math-skills
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