Trouble with TEENS (numbers, not kids :)

[alisoncooks]

My 6.5 year old is STRUGGLING with understanding and remembering the teens (11-19). We are using Singapore and I think I definitely need to approach this concept with a supplement.

 

Any ideas? Favorite ways to foster that larger-range number sense? I guess it extends into tens/ones, so if you have games that help with understanding, I'd appreciate it.

 

ALSO: For SM users, how much do you worry about them knowing the number names? (ie. reading twelve, nineteen, etc). This is a child who still struggles to read "cat" and "frog", so I'm balking at her being required to read these big number words.

[Dory]

With my daughter I had her watch a video on the MUS website in which they taught the basics of place value. It's the closest we have ever come to using MUS but it made teens and hundreds make sense to her.

[southernm]

I'm confused. Is she having trouble reading the number word names, recognizing the number, or place value?

[Tanikit]

My 5 year old also got stuck when we reached the teen numbers - I did a few different things: I made some cards of the numbers (both names and numerals) and hid them in the house getting her to find them and match them up. We counted items endlessly - initially just to 11 and 12 and then gradually up to 20 (she had been able to count to 20 for a while, but I back tracked to make sure she could count the objects and also match them to the numerals) I introduced the concept of the cuisenaire 10s rods with the smaller rods only later as she needed work on number correspondence with the larger numbers first.

 

My DD did not struggle with the reading once I had showed her the word "teen" as she already knew one to ten - thirteen was the one that gave her the most trouble but she got it in the end. (If you think of it as only a few they must learn - eleven, twelve, thirteen, fifteen - then it does not seem so bad)

[alisoncooks]

I'm confused. Is she having trouble reading the number word names, recognizing the number, or place value?

Yes. :D

(Though, I guess we haven't technically started place value. SM introduces the "teens" as a group of tens and group of ones. So 13 is a group of ten and 3 left over.

 

Singapore introduces the numerals 11-20 pretty much at the same time they expect you to learn the # names.

 

She can count well over 100, but if I call out "14" she struggles to remember how to right the numeral. She can count 14 items and can tell me that 10 + 4 = 14. But she may call "14" forty-one, when she sees it on paper. And she is having a hard time "reading" the number words when the lessons ask her to.

[OrdinaryTime]

I use the c-rods extensively with Singapore to illustrate the tens. We build each number with the rods over and over until it sticks. I use an Altoid tin (perfect size since a ten rod won't fit in it) and bigger plate to make a ones' house and tens' house. Once we hit ten ones, the rod won't fit in the ones' house so it has to move next door to the tens' house. Seriously, we build ever number up to 100 with the c-rods with this visual. We make up stories about the "families" living in the houses and have fun with it. We write out number charts as we build the numbers. I find it easier to just spend some time on the concept and cover numbers 1-100 than just the teens because it keeps enforcing the same concept of place value.

 

I do not worry about reading the written name of the numeral (ex. eleven) during math time. That is reading, not math. I skip those sections in Singapore. We focus on understanding the quantity and writing the numeral itself (ex. 11) during our math time.

[a27mom]

My daughter has struggled with this too. Two activities that helped immensely.

 

I took dominos (10 & 1, 10&2 etc...) then I wrote the numbers on cards. She has to match the dominos to the numbers and line them up in order. I actually did it w/ 1 - 20, the single digits helped reinforce the teens.

 

I also have a 20 sided dice. We roll the die and she tells me the number. Since it has all the numbers from 1 to 20 she had lots of success and gradually started to get the teens down. Right now she still struggles w/ 12 but has the rest down.

 

We use SM and I am just hanging out in that chapter for a while. We did do the later chapters, shapes and measurement already. You might want to skip ahead then come back.

[a27mom]

Adding: I skip the number word reading part too.