I think Graham Fletcher's example of rote counting is fantastic. Please watch the video. He made a connection with students reciting the alphabet, "l,m,n,o,p." They are just saying the letters but do not understand that a written symbol l,m,n,o,p matches the spoken letters. Same with a child counting "one, two, three, four, five ...," the child is rote counting. Rote counting is the most straightforward number concept that children develop, and it merely consists of counting numbers sequentially. Counting by rote is a skill that comes naturally to most children through song and simple interactions with our world. Singing and counting objects helps students match the symbol to a spoken word and then to a value.