Abstract: A large number of studies take an “ability” perspective on children’s early mathematical development. They mainly concentrated on children’s early mathematical knowledge and skills, thereby ignoring other possibly relevant aspects of young children’s early mathematical competence. This study focuses on spontaneous focusing on numerosity (SFON), which is a tendency of individuals to spontaneously pay attention to numerosity-related information in the environment. SFON is likely to be the basis for most other mathematical focusing tendencies, but its association with spontaneous attention to a number (SAN), spontaneously focusing on arabic number symbols (SFONS), and spontaneous focusing on quantitative relations (SFOR) remains to be clarified. As one of domain-specific predictors of mathematical performance, the development trajectory and mechanism of SFON should be paid in future research. The mechanism of SFON may be explored from mathematical motivation and math anxiety, and the measurement of SFON should be improved and innovated. Meanwhile, the research on educational intervention of SFON also should be promoted.

Key words: spontaneous focusing on numerosity, early math skills, informal environment, children