Finger tracing can help students solve maths problems

Using the index finger to trace over advanced and multi-step maths problems can help students with problem solving, new research shows.

Tracing can assist learning not only for spatial topics such as triangles and angle relationships, but also for non-spatial tasks such as learning the order of tasks in arithmetic problems.

For instance, students who traced over the addition, subtraction, multiplication, division and brackets symbols in problems such as 7 x (31 – 20) + 56 ÷ (5 – 3) = ? solved more problems correctly on a subsequent test.

We also found that students who traced over key elements of maths problems (eg, the arithmetic symbols +, -, ÷, x, and brackets used in order of operations problems) were able to solve other questions that extended the initial maths problem further. Superior performance on such “transfer” problems indicates students who traced weren’t simply memorising solutions to problems. Instead, tracing was helping them develop a deeper, more flexible understanding of the problem-solving methods.