ABSTRACT
This chapter is concerned with how children acquire an understanding of number. Such understanding depends on the development of mental models that represent the relevant numerical relations. In the early stages, it is important that children experience concrete analogs of number such as sets of discrete items and can understand the relations between sets. Because these analogs provide an experiential base for understanding numerical concepts and processes, we begin this chapter with a review of some commonly used analogs. We propose a number of principles for learning through analogy and apply these to a critical analysis of these analogs. The remainder of the chapter concerns children’s learning of early number concepts, the numeration of whole numbers, rational numbers, and negative integers.
