Practical Lessons for Teaching Counting Skills- Lesson 6

The One-Minute Teacher

TEACHES
Rote Counting Skills From 1 to 20 (Part 2)

Task 2: Rote Counting from 1 to 20 from memory. Think and Say Numbers from 1 to 20.
Cover the numerals with the sheet of paper and say to the student, “Now I am going to count from 1 to 20. Listen.” Count from 1 to 20. I counted from 1 to 20. Listen again while I count from 10 to 20. Repeat.

“Let’s do that together. Count from 1 to 20 with me. Ready.” (Signal) Touch each number and count with the student. Say, “Nice going. You counted from 1 to 20. Let’s do that one more time. Count from 1 to 20 with me. Ready.” (Signal). Count with the student. “Great job.”

“Now do that all by yourself. Count to from 1 to 20 for me. Ready.” (Signal). Listen to the student count. “Excellent counting. Do that one more time. Ready.” (Signal). Listen to the student count from 1 to 20 again. Say, “Great counting.”

Correction Procedure:
If the child cannot count to 20 without making errors, return to Task 1.

Fluency Checks: See and Say Numbers or Think and Say Numbers.
When students can count fluently, they can say numbers at 200 counts per minute with no more than 2 errors. When they are touching each number the count will drop to 100-150 counts per minute. Before we move on to more complex skills, we need to be sure that the student can think and say the numbers from 1-20 at 200 counts per minute with no more than 2 errors.

Say to the student, “Now we will do a fluency check for counting from 1 to 20. I will time you for 30 seconds. You will count from 1 to 20 as many times as you can until I say, Thank You. First I will say Ready. Then I will say Please begin. After 30 seconds I will say Thank You. Count from 1 to 20 as many times as you can. Ready. Please begin.” Wait for 30 seconds, then say, “Thank You.” To calculate the score, count the number of times the student counted from 1 to 20 and multiply that number by 20. Then add any other counts from the last count where the student did not get to 20. Subtract any errors from this score. Multiply the total number of correct counts by 2 to get a count per minute for correct counts. Multiply the number of errors by 2 to get a count per minute for errors. Record both scores on the chart.

Note: If you do not do the fluency check each day, you will never know whether or not the student has fluent counting skills. You will not know whether to review or to go on to new tasks. To the extent that you do not know whether or not the student is fluent at this task, you risk putting the student at risk of failure on the subsequent tasks. Do the fluency checks daily until the student reaches 200 counts/minute with no more than 2 errors.