'Counting From One' in Board Games Doesn't Improve Children's Number Skills

Playing board games that require counting has long been an activity viewed by teachers and parents as beneficial to children, but new research suggests that children will only benefit from counting games if the counting is done in a certain way.

Writing in the journal Developmental Psychology, researchers from Boston College and Carnegie Melon University suggest that it's not if children are counting, it's how they are counting that will benefit the development of early numbers skills in children.

"We found that it's the way that children count -- whether the counting procedure forces them to attend to the numbers in the spaces of a board game -- that yields real benefits in the use of numbers," said Elida Laski, a developmental psychologist at Boston College. "What's most important is whether you count within a larger series of numbers, or simply start from one each time you move a piece."

Laski and her research partner Robert S. Siegler, a professor of psychology at Carnegie Melon, tested the two counting methods by designing a 100-space board game that resembled the popular childhood game Chutes and Ladders.

In the first scenario, the game required the children to move their token along the squares, counting from one each time it was their turn. In the second scenario, the children were required to count from their present location on the 100-space board. For example, a child starting their turn form space 20 would begin counting from 21 as they moved their game piece.

The researchers found that children using the "count-on" method rather than counting from one were able to better develop the ability to encode relationships between numbers and space, which, in turn, improved the child's ability to estimate the sizes of numbers in number lines, identify numbers and count-on from numbers other than one.

Children tested on the standard "count from one" method showed considerably less learning, the researchers said.

In a follow-up experiment, the researchers tested children's ability to encode numbers one through 100 with methods other than a board game, finding that they show no appreciable gain in number line estimation.

In conclusion, the researchers suggests that for children to truly benefit from practicing counting while playing board games, the child must focus on the numbers on the game board, rather than just counting from one.

"Board games help children understand the magnitude of numbers by improving their abilities to estimate, to count and to identify numbers," Laski said. "But the benefits depend on how children count during the game. By counting-on, parents and their children can see some real benefits from board games. It's a simple way to enhance any game they have at home and still have fun playing it."