Nowadays, most parents know all the importance of early language development, so they do a lot to help their young children in this domain. But numeracy skills are also important, perhaps even more than literacy skills. Teaching basic math not only prepare children for school, it’s also the indispensable foundation towards more complex concepts in the discipline. The “Help Your Child Develop Early Math Skills” program by “Zero to Three” has highlighted the main math abilities that preschoolers need to train, at least as much as their talking and reading abilities.
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Understanding one-to-one correspondence.
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Identifying more and less of a quantity.
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Counting verbally (rote counting).
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Counting objects.
Rote counting – the naming of numbers beginning with zero or one from memory – is one of the first math skills children learn. Thanks to it, they can count any object or living being such as toys, clothes, books, stairs, plants, animals, and people. With among the favorite things to count: hands, legs, fingers and toes. Then, as soon as their children are able to count, parents should begin to play simple board games with them. Always, of course, by trying to keep this kind of activity as fun as possible.
Picture: Arcanys Early Learning Foundation