Which Is More
Two numbers. Tap the bigger one.
For grown-ups
- How long: 5 to 10 minutes is plenty. Short and frequent beats long and occasional — the early-numeracy trials with the largest effects ran eight weeks or less.
- The strategy to reinforce: “Think of the line” — Picture both numbers on a number line. The one further right is more. If they stall, remind them of this rather than giving the answer.
- When they get one wrong: the page shows the working. Read it together rather than moving straight on. Feedback that explains is worth several times more than feedback that only marks right or wrong, and that gap is wider in maths than in any other subject.
- On the timer: it is off unless you turn it on, and it is never needed. Use it only once the skill is comfortable, never to introduce it.
- Print it too: doing the same problems on paper a few days later is worth more than doing twice as many today.
What this practises
Comparing two numbers — deciding which is larger, fast.
Comparing quantities is the foundation the rest of arithmetic sits on. Pairs are drawn by ratio rather than at random, because the difficulty of a comparison depends on how close the two numbers are — 9 against 1 is nearly automatic, 9 against 8 is not.
- The underlying idea
- The symbolic numerical distance effect — closer numbers are harder to compare.
- Where this sits in Illustrative Mathematics
- Kindergarten Unit 2: Numbers 1–10 · Kindergarten Unit 6: Numbers 0–20
- Sources
- Holloway et al. (2009) · Institute of Education Sciences / What Works Clearinghouse (2021) · Qiu et al. (2021) all references →
Related measured skill: MagPI · Number comparison. What this means