## North Carolina Early Learning and Development Progressions: Birth to Five

#### Domain: NC Foundations for Early Learning: Cognitive Development (CD)

#### Subdomain: Mathematical Thinking and Expression

#### Goal: Children show understanding of numbers and quantities during play and other activities

#### Skill Progression: Counting

#### Age: 27-30 Months

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### Counts up to 4 items in a collection

Situations for Observation of Skill

Observe an adult counting with the child during daily activities.

Elicitation Strategy

If the adult does not spontaneously request counting, ask them to request that the child count something with which they are engaged (e.g., food, blocks, books, outdoor items such as leaves or sticks, etc.).

Behavior Observed

The child will count using number words, with accuracy to 4 with one-to-one correspondence.

Routines-based Intervention (Embedded Instruction)

Emphasize the importance of meaningful versus rote counting. Parents often ask their child to perform (“Can you count for me?”). Help them to understand that counting actual objects using pointing helps the child learn the meaning of the numbers. Children are more motivated to count if they have a reason. For example, “Please help me set the table. We need four spoons.”

North Carolina Department of Public Instruction, 2015

©2015 by the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/.