Use Zero

Well, it may, if you follow some very precise ideas.

First of all, counting is about how many objects. It’s not about a rhyme or a song, so do as much counting objects as you can.

How many cakes, how many sandwiches, how many knives, how many forks.

There are lots of opportunities to count. When you count in their presence, count out loud. Show them you use it.

Counting the steps as you go up, 1, 2, 3, 4 may be okay. But just reciting numbers without carrying a meaning isn’t really supporting their sense of maths.

The second point we’d like to make is this: We’re sure you know some variations to this song: Five little speckled frogs sitting on a log… then four, then three, then two, then one.

And then people often say, no frogs. Or something like “and then there were none”. Don’t do that. That is a missed opportunity. Use the word zero.

Get them used to the concept of zero, because they’re going to need that as soon as they start hundreds, tens and units. If you teach them zero now, it’ll be easier then.

So count objects moving them one by one or pointing at them one by one, and when you sing number songs always hold up your fingers and always use zero.