The Counting Glitch

Four little counting boats standing in a line, we can't count them all and that is fine!

"One... two... three..."

Lion smiled proudly.

"...five!"

Where did four go?

Like many toddlers, Lion can happily count. Or so it seems. If you ask her to count from one to twenty, she'll often recite the numbers confidently. To an adult, it sounds as though she's mastered counting, but then we start watching more carefully.

One afternoon we were lining up little boats.

"Let's count them." We got our Peter Pointers out and touched each boat to assign a number to them.

One.

Two.

Three.

I could take away or add some of the boats and the answers would remain correct.

Then came the fourth boat.

Lion paused.

"Five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten!" These numbers were all assigned to the one boat and the whole concept of counting with understanding fell apart. Interesting.

We tried again another day. Three cups? Easy. Four cups? Nope.

It wasn't that she couldn't say the word "four". She absolutely could. The problem was something much more interesting: She hadn't yet connected the spoken number to the actual quantity. Children don't learn mathematics by memorising number words. They learn mathematics by building relationships.

One object.

One word.

One touch.

One idea.

Then another.

Then another.

For Lion, the pattern was beautifully clear. One, two and three weren't just words anymore. They represented real amounts that she could see, touch and compare. Four, however, was still mostly part of a son. She could recite it. She just didn't fully understand it yet. This reminds me that learning isn't always a straight line. Sometimes it looks like a child who can confidently count to twenty, but can't find number four. And that is absolutely okay. Because underneath what looks like a mistake, something remarkable is happening. The brain is quietly building a bridge between words and meaning.

One day, almost without warning, that bridge will be complete. And suddenly... Four won't just be the next word in the counting song.

It will be an idea.