Number Sense Conceptions of Gifted and Talented Preschool

Abstract

In mathematics education, number sense is a crucial concept that develops core ideas for mathematics. Moreover, it has another important dimension that number sense shape and predict the preschoolers’ mathematical understanding in the future. The fact that gifted students are the ones can have a differentiated and higher level of number sense conceptions even if in their early ages, revealing this differentiation can be a necessity to understand their comprehension. Hence, the purpose of this case study is to assess the conceptions of gifted and talented preschool students in the domain of number sense, by conducting semi structured interviews with three children, ages 3-5, enrolling in a gifted and talented institute in Ankara, Turkey. The results of the study showed that these young gifted and talented students have a wide range of number sense comprehension and they showed a great success in the tasks adapted from Howell and Kemps’ (2010) study. Moreover, the study might have so many contributions to create awareness about the importance of construction of number sense of gifted and talented students in mathematics education.