ABSTRACT
It seems to most of us that mathematicians who can think with enormous numbers work in an abstract either by understanding patterns of higher thinking, but at first even they have a sense of the sizes represented by the symbols. The fact that numerals are symbols that represent particular quantities is something that early learners are absorbing before school. Many typical two-year-olds can name some numerals, but this does not mean that they associate the image or word with its actual quantity. The writing of numeral shapes is usually described in the curriculum around children's fourth and fifth years. Sensory or physical barriers constrain pupils with profound difficulties from fully relating to the use of graphic numerals, but this does that mean that we should not expose them to cultural encounters with numbers and numerals that occur in social interactions, games and practical activities, where they occur continuously.
