Practical Lessons for Teaching Counting Skills: Lesson 2

The One-Minute Teacher  TEACHES  Rote Counting Skills From 1 to 10 (Forward)  PART 2

Review Part 1 from our last lesson

Task 2: Rote Counting from 1 to 10. Think and Say Numbers from 1 to 10
Remove the sheet of paper and say to the student, “Now I am going to count from 1 to 10. Listen.” Count from 1 to 10. “1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. I counted to 10. Listen again while I count to 10. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10.”

“Let’s do that together. Count to 10 with me. Ready.” (Signal) Count with the student. “1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10.” Say, “Nice going. You counted to 10. Let’s do that one more time. Count to 10 with me. Ready.” (Signal). Count with the student. “1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10.”

“Great job. Now do that all by yourself. Count to 10 for me. Ready.” (Signal). Listen to the student count, “1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10.” Say “Excellent counting. Do that one more time. Ready.” (Signal). Listen to the student count, “1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10.” “Great counting!”

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 1-10 at 200 counts per minute with no more than 2 errors.

Say to the student, “Now we will do a fluency check for counting to 10. I will time you for 15 seconds. You will count from 1 to 10 as many times as you can until I say, Thank You. First I will say Ready. Then I will say Please begin. After 15 seconds I will say Thank You. Count to 10 as many times as you can. Ready. Please begin.” Wait for 15 seconds, then say, “Thank You.” To calculate the score, count the number of times the student counted to 10 and multiply that number by 10. Then add any other counts from the last count where the student did not get to 10. Subtract any errors from this score. Multiply the total number of correct counts by 4 to get a count per minute for correct counts. Multiply the number of errors by 4 to get a count per minute for errors. Record both scores.

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.