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Counting vs. Reciting
December 5, 2012
Teachers teach because they care. Teaching young people is what they do best. It requires long hours, patience, and care.
-Horace Mann
-Horace Mann
“'Reciting means saying the numbers from memory in chronological order, whereas counting involves understanding that each item in the set is counted once and that the last number stated is the amount for the entire set,' said Louis Manfra, an assistant professor in Missouri University's Department of Human Development and Family Studies. 'When children are just reciting, they’re basically repeating what seems like a memorized sentence. When they’re counting, they’re performing a more cognitive activity in which they’re associating a one-to-one correspondence with the object and the number to represent a quantity.'”
Contributed by Zvia Dover
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| Holiday Gifts from Exchange! Exchange is pleased to offer FREE SHIPPING on a variety of resources, including More than Numbers: Mathematical Thinking in the Early Years, during this holiday season. Order now in time for the holidays! Offer applies to free budget shipping to continental United States destinations only. Expires December 20, 2012. Enter code "freeship2012" upon checkout. |  |
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Comments (4)
Displaying All 4 CommentsUnited States
This thought can also be applied to the ABC's. Just because a child can sing the song, or even label letters, does not mean that they have a full understanding of what letters do for us.
This is why it is so important that we approach these concepts from the full realm of our senses.
I would compare it to basketball. You don't jump in and teach a new team plays, first you have to learn to dribble and pass the ball.
United States
I agree with Francis. This has been a pedagogical truth for some time. However, what is askew here is the idea that we now need to have preschoolers counting rather than reciting the numbers playfully, as in a song or a game. Counting belongs to the second stage of childhood or, at best, the latter stage of early childhood. They do not need to start counting in preschool. Kindergarten is plenty early, and first grade would be even more effective. Why? Because developmentally children are ready to start learning counting then. Why do we keep pushing the curriculum further and further down, and then labeling children because they cannot cope with what we are trying to teach them. Yesterday's post was beautifully clear that children need warmth and care and that standards are not appropriate in early childhood. HELP! When is sanity going to return? It is time for us to stand up for the health and well-being of our most vulnerable citizens.
CSBC
Denver, United States
Some of us have been saying this for a long time! But, in this era of "evidence based approaches" it seems we need research for everything. Who is doing the research to prove that children need love and respect to learn and grow?
Explorations Unlimited LLC
North Scituate, RI, United States
I have been saying the same thing for over forty years! It's about understanding quantity and understanding that a numeral is a symbol which represents the quantity. There is a parallel with reciting the alphabet. Letters also are symbols. They represent the sounds we make; together they form words which represent the spoken word, the thought, the object and more.
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