Practical Lessons for Teaching Counting Skills- Lesson 7

The One-Minute Teacher 

TEACHES
Rote Counting Skills From 1 to 100

Rationale:
In this exercise we will combine the previous exercises to teach rote counting from 1 to 100. We will practice counting until the fluency level of 200 counts/minute with 2 or fewer errors is reached. Now that the student has met the fluency standard for counting from 1 to 20, we can add the next step.

Materials:
The numbers from 1 to 100 printed below. A second blank sheet of paper.

  1   2   3   4   5   6   7   8   9 10
11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20
21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40
41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50
51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60
61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70
71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80
81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90
91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100

Rote Counting from 1 to 100. See and Say Numbers from 1 to 100.
This task should be done for a couple of minutes each day until the student counts to 100 quickly and easily without errors.

Task 1: Counting from 21 to 30.
Say to the student, “Count for me from 1 to 20. Listen to the child count from 1 to 20. Say, “You did it. Good counting. Say, “Now we are going to learn to count from 21 to 30.” Place the blank piece of paper under the numbers from 21 to 30. Say, “First I am going to count from 21 to 30. I will touch each number and say it. Listen.” Touch each number from 21 to 30 and say it. Say, “Listen again.” Repeat numbers from 21 to 30.

Say, “Count from 21 to 30 with me. I will touch the numbers. When I touch the number we well both say it. Ready.” (Signal) Touch each number and count from 21 to 30 with the student. Say, “Good job. You did it. You counted from 21 to 30. Let’s do that again. Count with me. Ready.” (Signal) Repeat counting from 21 to 30 with the student.

Say, “Good work.” Now try that all by yourself. Touch each number and count from 21 to 30. Ready.” (Signal) Watch the student touch each number and listen to the student count from 21 to 30. Say, “You did it. Good counting. Do that for me one more time. Ready.” (Signal) Listen to the student count again. Say, “Excellent, you are learning to count well.”

Correction Procedure:
If the child cannot count from 21 to 30 without making errors, model the task, then do it with the child. Check to see that counting from 1 to 20 is fluent at 200 counts per minute and review as necessary until fluency is reached.

Repeat Task 1 for sets of numbers 31-40, 41-50, 51-60, 61-70, 71-80, 81-90, 91-100.

Task 2: Rote Counting from 1 to 100. Think and Say Numbers from 1 to 100.
Say to the student, “Now count to 100 without looking at the numbers on the page. Ready. Please begin.”

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 because they cannot touch the numerals fast enough. Before we move on to more complex skills, we need to be sure that the student can think and say the numbers from 1-100 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 100. I will time you for 30 seconds. You will count from 1 to 100 as many times as you can until I say, Thank You. You may use the page with the numbers on it if you wish. When you can count really well with the paper, we will try it without the paper. Count to 100 as fast as you can. Ready. Please begin.” Wait for 30 seconds, then say, “Thank You.” To calculate the score, count the number of lines of ten that the student counted and multiply that number by 10. Then add any other counts from the last count where the student did not get to the end of a line. 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.