What is Subitizing?

All children are born with an innate ability to perceive the difference between 1 and 2 objects. With support and experience, they can quickly perceive and name how many for collections of 3, 4, and 5 objects. This mathematical ability is called subitizing. It is the ability to instantly recognise the number of objects in a small group without the need to count them. For example, when a child rolls a dice he can instantly recognise the number of dots on the face of the dice. It comes from the Latin word meaning suddenly. Encouraging children to subitise groups of items allows them to develop an understanding of how a number is made up of a collection of items.

Not all arrangements of the same number are equally easy to subitize younger children will recognize that there are 5 dots quickly if they are arranged like the corners of a square with a dot in the middle, but may be slower or less sure if the 5 dots are in a straight line, particularly if they are very close together. Understanding that subitizing is innate is a good start, but experience matters, too. Children need many experiences of noticing and naming small quantities in a variety of arrangements to strengthen their number sense.

In this resource we will see games on subitizing and number facts.

Skills You Gain From Subitizing and Number facts games

Skill 1 : understand the concept of subitizing

Skill 2 : explore games and activities for the number strand