Teaching Counting

Task 1

Teaching Counting in First Grade

Teaching a group of first grade students to count rationally to 15 can begin once the students have a firm understanding of rationally counting to 10. By making sure students understand the different counting principles, which include one-to-one correspondence, order of irrelevance rule, and cardinality rule, I can ensure they understand what they are learning.

If I would like for a group of students to advance in counting from 10 to 15, and I’m going to use one-to one correspondence, I may have students do an activity in which they cut out 15 objects and write each number 1 through 15 on each of the objects, such as apples. This way, they can understand that one number represents one object. They would need to point to each apple and count each one as they count to 15.

Students can use the apples they used to understand one-to-one correspondence to also understand the order of irrelevance rule and the cardinality rule. So students can understand the order of irrelevance rule, or specifically, that no matter how they count 15 objects, that it will still equal to 15 objects, students can mix around or shake up their apples in a bag and pour them out on their desk or table and then recount them, then repeat the exercise.

To help students understand the cardinality rule using the apples from the previous exercises, I would give students an “apple tree” envelope, which would also have the number 15 labeled on it. I would ask students to place their apples as they count, into the envelope. This activity would visually represent for the students that the last number they counted is also name for the set or total amount.

In order to make sure students understand how to count rationally to 15 their skills will need to be assessed. To assess new skills for students in one-to-one correspondence, I may show a student any set of 15 objects, lined up, and have a student point to each object as they say each number, 1 to 15. To...