A case study on the development of mathematics ability of early

childhood
Ruswanto1*, Al Jupri2
1
Departemen Pendidikan Matematika, Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia, Jl. Dr. Setiabudi No. 229,
Bandung 40154, Indonesia
2
Departemen Pendidikan Matematika, Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia, Jl. Dr. Setiabudi No. 229,
Bandung 40154, Indonesia
E-mail:uusruswanto@upi.edu

Abstrak. The development of conceptual and procedural abilities in early childhood is strongly
influenced by learning experiences both in the classroom and at home. The role of parents is to
introduce numbers and their meanings. Furthermore, its application in problem solving in schools
should be introduced under the guidance of teachers. This study aims to investigate the development
of children in recognizing mathematics, from number symbols, addition and subtraction operations.
This study used a case study method with the subject consisting of one child in one of kindergarten in
Indramayu. The results showed that the development of the child mathematical abilities has been
running according to the stages of child development. But in the operation process, especially the
subtraction, it is still difficult.
Keywords: children's mathematics learning development, children's cognitive abilities.

INTRODUCTION daily lives. Mathematics studied and developed

Early childhood education is a coaching
effort aimed at children from birth to the age of
six years which is carried out through the
provision of educational stimuli to assist growth
and development, physically and spiritually so
that children have readiness to enter further
education [ 1 ] . It is clear that the purpose of early
childhood education is focused on helping the
growth and development of thought processes
and is combined with development to support
physical and spiritual health.
Then we look at it from the point of
view of mathematics itself, whether it is studied
with the aim of raining logical thinking and so
on. Math proficiency is considered very
beneficial for learners to follow learning at
levels more or to overcome problems in their
in order to equip students with the ability to
think logically, analytical, systematic, critical,
and creative. It thus is the reason for the
importance of mathematics to be learned [ 2 ] .
Early childhood curriculums and frameworks
world-wide are beginning to recognise the
potential for children prior to formal schooling
to think mathematically, solve complex
problem, make connections between various
concepts, abstract and generalise mathematics
ideas and represent these ideas [ 3 ] .
In terms of child development, Piaget
suggested that all children journey through the
sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete
operations, and formal operations stages of
development [ 4 ] . During the process of moving
through one stage to the next, children’s
cognitive ability change qualitatively [ 5 ] . Piaget
also believed that cognitive development is a
continuous process and all children, even in
different environmental context and culture
diversity around the world, have the same
sequence of cognitive development [ 6 ]. From
this presentation, Piaget then proposed theory
about children's cognitive development that
involves important processes, namely schema,
assimilation, accommodation, organization, and
equilibration. In theory, stages of cognitive
development. Piaget identified four stages in
cognitive development: Sensorimotor Stage
(infancy), Pre-operational Stage (Toddler and
Early Childhood), Concrete Operational Stage
(Elementary and Early Adolescence), Formal
Operational Stage (Adolescence and adulthood)
[ 7]
From several explanations of the
theories and opinions above, the focus of
research is on the cognitive development of
children at the pre-operational stage where at
this stage children are aged 2 to 7 years. at this
stage they are able to recognize numbers, count
and operate numbers with symbols and
experience mathematics in the habits that
children do every day. The purpose of this study
is to determine the development of
understanding numbers, operating the number
and less of the same object, and able to
understand the currency of the nominal not the
amount, and as an evaluation material for the
application of mathematical concepts in early
childhood both in class and at home.
METHOD
This research used a descriptive method with a
qualitative approach within the framework of a
case study. The subject consisted of 1 grade B
students (6/7-year-old) in one of Indramayu
class B kindergarten right, Indonesia, with the
reason that this research reached the final goal
of looking at the development of early childhood
mathematics abilities. This research was
conducted in two directions, namely seeing
children learning in class, how to support
learning in class, how teachers deliver material
and children's responses to the material being
taught. The research was also conducted at the
child's home, to find out how the learning
process was at home, how parents supported the
development of children's mathematical
abilities, and how the child's learning experience
was from what is seen in everyday life.
This research used case study research,
where the object studied in the Case Study
research only tells itself in depth / detail /
complete to obtain a complete picture of the
object (wholeness) in the sense that the data
collected in the study is studied as a whole,
integrated whole [ 8 ] .
For the research instrument itself, the
author used an interview technique with the
classroom teacher, with the aim of knowing how
the development of the child's mathematical
ability, how this child responds to class
assignments. The author also used interviews
with children's parents and tried to make
observations in the field, saw children in the
learning process in class and at home, observed
children doing assignments and made
observations of children using currency, and
recognize the amount and nominal currency and
concluded the symbols and mathematical
symbols found in daily life.
In addition to in-depth interviews, there
are five techniques for collecting case study
research data, namely documentation, direct
observation, participant observation, and
physical artifacts. Each to complement the other.
So this showed the strength of the case study
compared to other methods in qualitative
research.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
From the results of the review, it was found that
children's development begins with children
memorizing numbers but not recognizing
numbers, children are able to count from 1 to 10
at the beginning of the development of
recognizing numbers, but do not know the
numbers mentioned by children. After learning,
children are tried to recognize these numbers
through the approach of their parents in the
learning process at home, after being able to
count and recognize numbers, in class children
learn to relax how to write and learn to write
numbers for 6 meetings. Get to know numbers
while colouring and writing numbers with the
help of the teacher in class and assignments that
are assisted by parents in doing the class
assignments.
Then from the results of interviews with
this child's parents and also the author's
observations, it was found that this child could
not distinguish the value of the currency which
he understood was the amount not the value.
When a child is given 10,000 snacks with 1
piece of currency, then with 3 2,000 bills, this
child prefers the large amount instead of the
nominal.
At the beginning of the study, the author
made observations in the field and finally
decided to conduct.a case study on the
development of mathematical abilities in early
childhood focusing on children aged 5-7 years
who were at the pre-operational stage in Piaget's
theory.
At first the child does not recognize
numbers at all but is only able to calculate from
the memorization process taught by parents in
their spare time at home and finally the child is
able to store it in his memory, but to recognize
the number itself the child has not been taught
by new parents from the TV remote and
individually. spontaneously asked his parents.
According to their parents, when a child will
watch TV then they want to change the TV
channel because the child is already able to
memorize numbers 1 to 10 so they are able to
ask questions.
After entering school which is carried
out 3 times a week and learning is not carried
out at school but at home the class teacher with
a limited time of only 60 minutes, the role of
parents is very much needed to support the
development of children's learning, especially in
children's mathematical abilities, even in the
children's assignment books, there are many
tasks. drawing tasks associated with recognizing
numbers, recognizing numbers and matching the
number of images with numbers, as shown in
the following figure 1.
Figure 1. recognize numbers and count from the
same object
From the picture above, it can be
concluded that a child's reading ability must
match the number of pictures. And it takes
pictures that are the same shape and in
accordance with the ability or daily experience
of children, pictures or tools to introduce the
number of numbers must be from something
that can be seen by the child in the child's habits,
in accordance with the environment around the
child, with the aim of making it easier for the
child to process reasoning in the end children's
ability in mathematics continues to develop.
From the beginning the child can count without
recognizing numbers, increasing to recognizing
numbers and being able to write them down,
calculate and present in written form by
thickening numbers (see Figure 2).
Figure 2. Matching according to the same
number of pictures
The stage of child development
continues to increase, from the learning
experience in the classroom and also, the role of
parents in helping teach to provide an
understanding of the fun of learning. Is able to
match the number of pictures that have been
coloured by the child and then pair it with the
ladder next to it according to the picture above.
The ability from the beginning of how children
recognize, read, write and match figures, these
are all experiences felt by children in classroom
learning and also the learning process at home in
semester 1, the research is tried to be continued
in semester 2 to find out how the child's
development is in adding up good numbers in
the first semester image or direct (see Figure 3).
Figure 3. Children's writing tasks
The next stage in semester 2, learning
mathematics in children is no longer just
knowing, writing and matching. But already in
the realm of distinguishing about the value of a
number itself, the child will be able to determine
which images are of the same value, not the
same, bigger and smaller, also able to
distinguish images in order of high from the
lowest to the highest by sorting using number.
as in the work that has been done (see Figure 4).
Figure 4. sort and compare tasks
After getting to know everything that
has been learned both through classroom
learning experiences and learning experiences at
home, children are able to do calculations with
the help of fingers, but the child's ability is
limited to calculations from 1 to 5. the next
stage in learning in class, children have entered
the realm of operations both addition and
subtraction.
In addition operations, children do not
experience difficulties because they only count
one picture and combine it with the other
picture, even though the number is more than 5
because the child feels that it is helped by the
addition which is presented in the form of
pictures of fruits, animals and objects that they
usually see. on the surrounding environment.
But in the operation of subtraction the child has
difficulty, because from picture one and picture
two there are both pictures, and doing the
subtraction is still considered difficult by the
child. Parents as teachers at home have tried to
help but the child is still having difficulties,
although in the end the child is able to do the
assignments from school, but according to the
author, the development of children at the stage
of operation of reduction still needs guidance.
1. Conclusions
Based on the results of case study research
conducted by means of in-depth interviews and
field observations, it can be concluded that the
development of children's mathematical abilities
has been running according to the stages of child
development. However, the operation process,
especially the reduction of children, is still
experiencing difficulties. The implication is that
it is necessary to review the teaching indicators
in the operation chapter, both addition and
subtraction, because learning in children is
actually only focused on how they know
mathematics as part of life with a pattern of
learning while playing.
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