As a veteran teacher I use an array of teaching strategies... some that change and grow over the years, and several that have changed very little because they are gems that help all children learn. Two of those are my counting strategies to increase accuracy in the counting sequence.
The first is what I call "the doorbell" count. When counting the doorbell way kids are taught to press and pause a moment with their finger on the object they are counting until the whole word (the number) is said, then move on to the next item, pausing on it until the whole word (the number) is said aloud. This is especially helpful later in the year when they count large quantities and the numbers when said have multiple syllables.
The second counting strategy is "pull away and count." When using this strategy children slide the item they are counting away from the original group to a counted group... this helps them stay organized... knowing which ones have been counted and which are yet to be counted.
There were two significant mentors of mine who taught me the importance of letting kids know what they were learning about, one was from my college days at Boston College and the other a mathematician here in Vermont from whom I am still learning. I use this strategy everyday. I refer to it as WALT which is short for "We Are Learning To." Everyday we talk about the WALT statement so that kids have a frame of reference for why they are doing an activity to build a skill. You will see this posted in our room daily... for the counting strategies lesson, the WALT statement was "Count to tell how many" meaning they will use the doorbell and pull away strategy to count accurately and know how many items they have counted.
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