ABSTRACT
Infants are born with perceptual equipment allowing them to visually isolate a small number of individual objects (parallel individuation), while their inborn object-tracking system enables them to keep track of up to three such items simultaneously through time and space. Unlike the approximate comparisons of sizing up, these abilities account for quantities absolutely and precisely, thereby sowing the seeds for counting. Tracking also allows infants to be aware when an object goes missing and to remember where it used to be, a primitive understanding of the empty set (zero). Another lead-up to counting in the early years is quantitative language, which helps to make implicit quantitative understanding explicit. Quantitative grammatical features include plurals, quantifiers, size descriptors, demonstratives, comparatives, and number words. Connecting number words to quantity (cardinality) can take several years of experimentation, but counting becomes more precise and abstract through the preschool years, and children gain a sense of what is countable and what must be measured. Spontaneous focus on numerosity aids these developments and is aided by them. The chapter offers classroom activities drawing attention to and manipulating small numerosities and zero and developing language to think and communicate about them.
