We've written about it before, and we'll write about it again because it is a situation we face every day working with our students, and that is continuing to count by ones well past the primary grades and even into high school! There is nothing inherently wrong with counting by ones, be it on fingers, toes, tally marks or on the white board in their head. It does becomes very tedious and cumbersome however as math equations and the accompanying calculations get more complex and numbers get larger. Ultimately, counting by ones stifles a child’s mathematical development by keeping them in the limiting headspace of one-by-one counting.
According to Mathnasium founder and Chief Education Officer, Larry Martinek, it is important to help your child develop Numerical Fluency. Numerical fluency is an ease with numbers. I compare it to the comfort a swimmer has in the water after taking lessons and spending a summer at the pool versus when they first got into the water. Mathnasium considers the ability to see and work with numbers in groups rather than one by one a cornerstone for developing numerical fluency. We also discussed numerical fluency in our article What is Numerical Fluency posted on July 18, 2015.
What can you as a parent do about it? How can you help your child move away from counting on their fingers? One way parents can help their children become more fluent with numbers is to play math games with their kids. Throw away the flash cards! They are boring and tedious! Take a regular deck of playing cards with the face cards removed (or your Mathnasium cards if you're a student at our center) and play addition war, 10 slam, Heads up addition, complements of 10 "go fish" and other games. Stop by our center for a listing of card game instructions you can play together. Alternatively, you can buy games such as 99 or Bust, 7 Ate 9, Zoom and Albert's Insomnia to help your children with their math facts. Just 5-10 minutes a day will make a huge difference for your child and you'll both have fun doing it!
You can also enroll your child at Mathnasium! Not only will we play games to develop numerical fluency we have specialized curriculum designed specifically to help children get beyond counting by ones! Call us today at 303-840-1184 to find out how we can help.
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