One-to-One Correspondence and Counting Skills

Children can find many opportunities in their daily life to experience one-to-one correspondence.

ü  Place one sock inside one shoe

ü  Place one lid on each of several containers

ü  Place a cup with a plate

Once children understand these relationships, they can link one number with one object and then count with understanding. “Rote memorization of a set of numbers is meaningless” (Moore, 1973, p. 67) and counting is a skill which should not be stressed until the child has shown understanding of basic classification, conservation, seriation and set comparison at both the quality level (attributes of objects) and the quantity level (general amounts in groups or sets).

When students are equipped with the counting skills, they can benefit from learning several other counting strategies to increase their accuracy and efficiency. Just like any other concepts or skills, it is vital to start working with real objects and manipulative as learning aids.