Can your child quickly recognise a number of objects between 1 and 10 in a ten-frame or on fingers without counting?

Children need to be able to quickly recognise numbers of objects fewer than 6 without counting them.  They also need to be able to recognise numbers of objects greater than 6 by recognising smaller groups, combining them and by recognising familiar patterns (e.g. quickly recognising seven fingers by seeing five on one hand and two on the other). 

Developing a strong visual awareness of number will help develop your child’s number sense. Practice this by placing objects in a ten-frame (see below) and by repeated counting of fingers until children can subitise these numbers fluently. 

•  Subitising is when you are able to look at a group of objects and realise how many there are without counting

Can your child recognise that numbers can be partitioned?

A great way to check this is to show children a small number of objects, get them to close their eyes, cover some of the objects and then ask how many are covered. This can be further practised by exploring part-whole models with objects and then with numbers (see below).

Has your child begun to understand place value?

Students have learned to understand the significance of two digit numbers and that each digit in a two-digit number represents something different due to its position (i.e. in 16, the 1 represents 1 ten and the 6 represents 6 ones.) Practising part-whole models for two-digit numbers that partition numbers into tens and ones can be useful way to develop understanding of this concept and place value more better.

Counting on

One of the simplest strategies that children use for addition, counting on takes time and practice to develop. For example, children may initially instead use a count all strategy: when calculating 2 + 5, your child may show two fingers and five fingers and then proceed to count them all.

It’s important to note that this isn’t a ‘wrong’ strategy. As with all the strategies discussed here, it is important to recognise with children that they are developing a bank of strategies from which they can learn to choose the most efficient as their sense of number evolves.

You may find that your child struggles to count on to add. A common error is to include the start number. For example, in calculating 8 + 2, your child may say, “eight, nine,” and stop there as two numbers have been counted. To support an understanding of this strategy – and children’s understanding of the ordinal aspect of number (the idea that numbers have a position) – use a number-line

Ordering Numbers

A) Write / say the numbers from  the smallest to the biggest.

B) Write / say the numbers from the biggest to the smallest.             

Addition and subtraction within 20.