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About Numeracy

The learning area, Numeracy, helps children learn and understand numeracy concepts and skills to use them confidently in their daily life.

Last updated 29 May 2025

On this page

Numeracy (NUM)
What are the benefits?
Learning goals and knowledge, skills and dispositions (KSD) in NUM
How can you do it?
Organising the learning environment
Monitoring and assessing children's learning and development
Resources

Numeracy (NUM)

As an early childhood educator, you help children develop a positive disposition towards numeracy learning and their foundational numeracy concepts and skills for future learning like:

Relationships and patterns

Counting skills and number sense

Shapes and spatial concepts

What are the benefits?

Supporting children in developing their numeracy skills offers several valuable benefits:

Making sense of daily experiences

By integrating numeracy concepts into their daily experiences, children can better understand and engage with numeracy confidently in various settings, including at home, in school, and within the community.

Building logical thinking skills

Nurturing numeracy skills helps children develop logical thinking abilities, enabling them to problem-solve and make decision with a structured and analytical mindset.

Laying the foundation for future mathematics learning

Developing numeracy concept and skills in early childhood lays a strong foundation for future mathematics learning in primary schools, setting children up for success in more advanced mathematical concepts and applications.

Learning goals and knowledge, skills and dispositions (KSD) in NUM

The four learning goals for numeracy focus on the need for you to help children:

  • Enjoy learning and using numeracy concepts and skills in daily experiences.

  • Understand relationships and patterns.

  • Develop counting skills and number sense.

  • Understand basic shapes and spatial concepts.

Refer to the Educators’ Guide for Numeracy for more information.

Learning Goal 1: Enjoy learning and using numeracy concepts and skills in daily experiences


Knowledge, Skills and Dispositions (KSD):
Provide opportunities for children to…

1.1 Develop an awareness of how and why numeracy ideas and processes are useful in in their daily life
1.2 Use mathematical language (e.g., “bigger than”, “smaller than”, “more than”, “fewer than” or “less than”, shape names) in their daily life

Learning Goal 2: Understand relationships and patterns


Knowledge, Skills and Dispositions (KSD):
Provide opportunities for children to…

2.1 Match, sort and compare things by at least one attribute (i.e., colour, shape, size, length, height and/or child-determined attributes)
2.2 Put things in an order according to attributes (i.e., size, length, height, child-determined attributes and sequence of events)
2.3 Recognise, extend and create patterns (e.g., ABABAB, ABCABCABC)
2.4 Describe relationships and patterns recognised and created

Learning Goal 3: Develop counting skills and number sense


Knowledge, Skills and Dispositions (KSD):
Provide opportunities for children to…

3.1 Rote count to at least 20
3.2 Count reliably up to at least 10 things
3.3 Recognise that the quantity of a set of up to at least 10 things stays the same regardless of the arrangement (conservation of quantity)
3.4 Recognise numbers in numerals and in words
3.5 Match number name, numeral and/or number word to the quantity of a set of things
3.6 Write numbers in numeral
3.7 Compare the quantities of two sets of up to 10 things each and use “same as”, “more than”, “fewer than” and “less than” appropriately
3.8 Name the parts that form the whole in a quantity of up to 10 (e.g., 5 is made up of 2 and 3, and 1 and 4)

Learning Goal 4: Understand basic shapes and spatial concepts


Knowledge, Skills and Dispositions (KSD):
Provide opportunities for children to…

4.1 Recognise the four basic shapes (i.e., circle, square, rectangle and triangle)
4.2 Develop an awareness of the attributes of the four basic shapes
4.3 Use the basic shapes to form other shapes or figures
4.4 Develop an awareness of spatial concepts such as position (i.e., top and bottom, in front of and behind), direction (i.e., up and down, left and right) and distance (i.e., far and near)

How can you do it?

Using Concrete-Pictorial-Abstract (CPA) Approach

Using Manipulatives and Games

Using Stories, Songs and Rhymes

Asking Prompting Questions

Providing Opportunities for Problem-Solving

Using Daily Routines and Transitions

Organising the learning environment

You can create a numeracy-rich learning environment by organising the physical, interactional and temporal aspects to promote children’s numeracy learning:

Physical environment

Interactional Environment

Temporal environment

Monitoring and assessing children's learning and development

Assessing children’s learning is not about sitting children down to complete worksheets or tasks. You can use games or daily activities to observe and assess children’s learning. To understand how children acquire, understand, and apply numeracy concepts and skills, you can use the "What? – So What? – Now What?" framework to guide your observation and reflection. 

Resources