Math CONCEPTS in young children

[peacefully]

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[FO4UR]

My .02, fwiw - take math off of the worksheets for a while. Wait until he understands some of these things irl well before putting it to paper.

 

My ds7 could prattle off "counting" VERY young....he corresponded counting with actual objects well before kindy-age. He would not have been able to prove his knowledge on a worksheet though.

 

"Counting on"... I have never taught my ds7 to do that. He can, but I have no idea how young he was when he first could.

 

Identifying small quantities - very young. Numbers up through 5, he could identify well before kindy. He couldn't do it with die though (small dots and visual discrimination issues didn't mix;)). I stressed this though - In fact, I avoided counting for math...counting is for playing hide-and-seek. LOL

 

Plenty of play with Cuisenaire rods took care of teaching number bonds and the relationship between quantities. I HIGHLY recommend Cuisenaire Rod play for young dc!

 

He didn't "get" skip counting for a long while (even though he could multiply small numbers easily from EARLY on:001_huh:) Again, the Cuisenaire rods taught what I didn't/couldn't. I just heard him skip counting to himself last week during "off school" hours (that's when I know something is "stuck") and he just turned 7.

 

He would NEVER learn skip counting by rote first. He is very much a concrete understanding first kind of kid. If he doesn't understand why we are doing an exercise, it is all a loss.

 

My guess, not knowing you or your ds: it's a mix of letting things develop naturally (5 is young for workbook-type math imHo), the curric not following your ds's learning style, the curric not communicating what it should to your ds. (I would guess he understands pattern and quantity with real life objects...but the format of the curric doesn't "grab" him.)

 

Try doing some things with him that test his abilities completely away from and outside of his math worksheets. Ask him to set the table and watch to see if he just picks up the correct amount of forks or if he counts them one-by-one...or if he picks up one fork and says "Mommy"...another and says "Daddy"...etc... Simply observing things like this will tell you more than a worksheet.

[matrips]

count by rote - age 3- up to 100, age 4 up to 1000

count with one-to-one correspondence - about 3 (we had a lot of sharing that needed to be done daily, so they learned to count!)

 

• know how to “count on†(start with 5, then say 6, 7, 8, etc. without needing to start with 1) - didn't really pay attention
  
• identify small quantities through pattern (recognize 5 on a die face or an arrangement of 4 and 4 as 8) - age 5 (current
  
• conserve number - ? what does this mean
  
• regroup numbers (like number bonds) - not yet
  
• skip count by rote - age 4, up to the 15's (by 12)
  
• skip count by understanding pattern - 4.5
  

we're trying to play a lot of math games (they're loving a Hot Wheels game right now), and we do Singapore and MUS to get the concepts two different ways. I've got two that are still having problems understanding place value, even though they looked like they had it a few months ago. So it's something we'll keep visiting and looking at from different angles.

 

my kids are 5 as well, and I'm learning that even though they appear to know something one day, it doesn't mean they've mastered it, and they can have trouble with it the next day or even weeks down the line.

 

if it's seeing small patterns that are the issue, are you thinking vision issues? have his eyes been checked? otherwise, I probably would just give him time.

[StephanieZ]

At what age did your young child (let’s say under 8), start to:

 

• count by rote -- by age 2

• count with one-to-one correspondence -- by age 2

• know how to “count on†(start with 5, then say 6, 7, 8, etc. without needing to start with 1) -- by age 2 or 3

• identify small quantities through pattern (recognize 5 on a die face or an arrangement of 4 and 4 as 8) -- by age 2

• conserve number -- don't know what this means

• regroup numbers (like number bonds) by age 4

• skip count by rote -- by age 4

• skip count by understanding pattern by age 4

(feel free to answer as few or as many as you want :D)

 

I ask because my 5 yo ds seems to do great on his math worksheets (Sadlier-Oxford — not my choice), but when I ask him to apply math concepts in a different context, he doesn’t seem to really get it. I am trying to understand if: a) his issue is typical of his developmental stage (my cognitive psych class was many years ago so my grasp of Piaget is pretty rusty); or b) if this is more of a curricular issue; or c) he has a learning issue with pattern and quantity. Any input that you have will be most interesting to me. :bigear:

 

I put my answers in blue above. I am not a fan of worksheets for kids under 5 or so. I would suggest Peggy Kaye's Game for Math book for a lot of great ideas for helping a child understand math concepts. FWIW, I found that my kids were more than able to grasp preschool-K level math concepts just by playing with numbers, playing math games, playing board games, etc.

[Closeacademy]

My oldest was a late-talker and more mathy. When I say 4 for her that is when she became verbal and able to express these concepts but she demonstrated knowledge of how to do these before she was verbal. My youngest is stubborn and decided not to learn.

 

[*]count by rote oldest 4, youngest 6

 

[*]count with one-to-one correspondence oldest 4, youngest 6

 

[*]know how to “count on†(start with 5, then say 6, 7, 8, etc. without needing to start with 1) oldest 4, youngest 7

 

[*]identify small quantities through pattern (recognize 5 on a die face or an arrangement of 4 and 4 as 8) oldest 4, youngest still working on it

 

[*]conserve number oldest 4, youngest still working on it

 

[*]regroup numbers (like number bonds) oldest 5, youngest still working on it

 

[*]skip count by rote oldest 5, youngest still working on it

 

[*]skip count by understanding pattern oldest 5, youngest still working on it.

 

 

[Dinsfamily]

These answers are for both of my boys. We're assuming my 5yo is gifted in math (never been tested) and my 3yo has a knack for learning by osmosis. I did very little formal curriculum with my 5yo before we started K and haven't done any with my 3yo.

 

• count by rote (2-2.5 maybe?...def to 100 by 3.5)
  
• count with one-to-one correspondence (2)
  
• know how to “count on†(start with 5, then say 6, 7, 8, etc. without needing to start with 1) (by 3)
  
• identify small quantities through pattern (recognize 5 on a die face or an arrangement of 4 and 4 as 8) (not sure...they both do this)
  
• conserve number
  
• regroup numbers (like number bonds) (oldest taught himself addition between 2-3, but formally learned number bonds at 5...ds#2 isn't there yet...he can add, but not mentally regroup numbers)
  
• skip count by rote (oldest at 4-4.5)
  
• skip count by understanding pattern (oldest at 5)
  

 

I don't know how much my answers will mean since my oldest is so "mathy," but he really hasn't learned much from the formal curriculum yet. He actually learned most of it on his own by playing around with toys or just in his head before we started K this year. Singapore 1A and 1B have really just organized his thoughts this year. I hope that makes sense.