Can your 3 or 4 yr old count??

[countless]

My friends today were discussing their kids classmates and expressing dismay that some 3 and 4 yr olds couldn't count, or count out objects, to 10 or even 20.
I had been impressed that dd age 3.2 is 'number aware'. She likes to 'count' ometimes, running upstairs, skipping etc. But randomly, 1,2,3,7,10. It always makes me smile and I've never attempted to correct or teach her.
So just wondering what is normal...?

My son (just 4) counts to about 20, or 30 or 40... don't know how many really!

My daughter (23 months) "counts" to ten but normally misses out one.

My son likes doing sums on his fingers- eg 2 fingers plus 2 fingers makes 4.

Bottom line as many say is it doesn't really matter at 3/4. And it's the concept of number that's important, the counting the items etc rather than saying them parrot fashion. My son only really picked this up a lot more recently- last 6 months I'd say, after being "into" numbers really early on.

I think if they get curious you teach/tell them, both mine have, same with colours, they both knew and could say lots of colours before 2.

Comparisons are odious, a wise man once said...

dd2 loves counting. She had over 1 million My Little Ponys last time she counted , so long as "1, 2, 3, 4, 9, 11teen, 38's, 117, 50-tens, 1 million thousands, 560's, 1 million" is right?

She is 3 and half. She is behind her peers in many areas and ahead in many areas. I'm fairly sure she will be diagnosed with some SEN at some point soon, but she is happy so I am not pushing her.

My darling nephew is 3.nearly 1. I took him out for the day to a car show (he loves cars) and, not knowing what his number skills were like, started a game while watching some drag racing. [he is actually my DN out-of-law, have been with DP less than a year...]

He absolutely loved it! We were counting between races, got as high as 20 sometimes - most were between 7 and 10 - although he got a bit lost at 13, then Goooooooooooooooooooo as the cars went down the strip. Got some really odd looks from other people in the stand, but a little girl sat near us joined in and her dad thought it was great!

This was in June when he was 2.8. He now reliably gets to 19. I'm a teacher at heart, so try to involve stuff like that when I play with him (his mum thinks its great, I checked)

I still count stairs etc, habit left over from childhood. It's all good practice :)

PS sorry, didn't mean to boast if it came across that way! I'm an only child so acquiring a beautiful, adorable niece and 2 nephews is a big deal for me LOL

dd is 4yo and has a decent conceptual understanding of numbers to twenteen twenty (but not the name of the last one, obv ) She can also appreciate adding and subtracting and how many groups of five or ten make twenty. Beyond that she can rattle off the numbers but they're just words and when she gets into forties she creates her own numbers, four-twent-four is a good one

I would say normal to count to around 10 or 20 at this age. DS is at a french preschool for 3 year olds and being able to count to 10 was one of the (fairly basic) categories on his report. He is now 4.3 and can do simple addition and subtraction - using his fingers if it is more than 1 or 2 he is adding.

DD 2.9 can count by rote to 16 (16 stairs )

But can actually count objects to 6

Don't know what's normal. DD was counting to three at 16 months and could count to 10 by 18 months. Now she's 3.5 and counts to 20 and always misses out 12 and 13 , so she hasn't improved much!

Being able to recite numbers is quite different to having a concept of numbers - and it is the latter that matters!

I always played counting games with my DD from a young age and she understood numbers up to 50 (5 people in family so ten hands of five fingers) quite young - at around 3.

Yes that's true. I feel quite bad actually saying that DD hasn't improved much, when she has really!

When she first started counting she didn't know what she was saying - she was just reciting the names, she couldn't recognise them - she wouldn't have known a two if it smacked her in the face! Now she recognises them.

DD is 3.3 and can count past 100 thanks to a thrilling 5 hour car journey on the way to our hols in the summer when she did nothing but count [arggh emoticon]. Once they've got the idea that you go up to 9 and then have the 'new' first number and go up to 9 again IYSWIM it's really easy so we had this conversation:
DD '...27, 28, 29, 20-10... mummy what's 20-10 called'
Me '30 darling'
DD '31, 32...39, 30-10.. mummy what's 30-10 called'
Me 'do you want to play with your baby now?'
DD 'MUMMY what's 30-10 called'
Me '40 darling'
DD '41, 42...' etc
and repeat for 5 hours
She still gets a bit muddled occasionally but essentially has it and counts things like jigsaw pieces out so I think she understands it too. Not sure she'd recognise all of them written down but does point out different double digit house numbers etc and writes them on the fridge with magnets. She does basic adding and subtracting in her head but only up to around 5 I think (if you have 3 apples and eat one etc).

I think a lot of it is just whether they happen to sit down for long enough and are interested at that moment - eg she could recognise numbers up to 10 at 18 months but only because she happened to be shown it at nursery (summer born so youngest in her nursery group and watched when they taught the older ones).

DS is nearly 7 and DD is 5.

I have no idea when they started counting . They can do it now

DS got interested in numbers due to Thomas the Tank Engine . Numberjacks also play a role in our house.

Catz - I feel your pain (DS who 5 did the same but up to 1000, verrrryyyy slowly, still misses out 15 though everytime, it does not exsist)

my counting-obsessed 3yo likes typing out all the numbers on my laptop when I am desperate to have it back so I can Mumsnet do important grown-up things.
he can't do it independently though, needs constant help, which is more boring than a boring thing on National Boring Day.
He also keeps butting in when I am trying to read stories because he's not interested in the words, just the page numbers.

My dd (nearly 4) can count to a billion* - beat that!

*well, she would if 100 came straight after 30 and a billion was the next number after 109

Ah it's all so cute isn't it :o

My DD only learnt numbers and capital letters from a toy computer thing that was a hand me down from her half sisters. Good grief, the amount of minutes we've spent dawdling at road signs while she pointed out every single letter. And in our town, every road name has the district written underneath so twice as many letters as normal!

As an aside, I saw a show on teachers tv filmed at a particular school. When teaching higher numbers they said, Eg, ten was "onety" eleven was "onety one" and twenty was "twoty" etc. It made more sense as it standardised the pattern, then they told them the proper names much later. I was & at first but it seemed to work really well. Would need very consistent teachers though!

My nephew learnt to count by snooker, mainly as he watched the black went in so he said
1 8 9 16
hilarious and in continued for ages

My DS has been 'counting' from early on (although he speaks so poorly we only really realised when he did it with objects). Nursery seemed quite impressed.

Problem with 'counting' as they explained it to me was it means lots of things. One is simply ability to rote learn a long phrase (1-whatever), then objects (which, apparently not all 'counters' get), then ordering. DS (at 2.5) couldn't count clearly much beyond 20, but could order and do stuff in the abstract-e.g if you show him a numeral 5 and a numeral 11 he will say which is bigger (indeed, is easier to do this than numbers because the language is clearer).

Basically I got the impression staff much more interested in whether kids are getting 'bigger' and 'smaller' than whether they actually know numbers (so in your case if she understands four steps more than 2). But they might just have been buttering me up.

DS1 is 3.6yo and can count to 12 on his own. But it's not a competition out there, some are good at counting but not so good at other skills and vice versa.

DD (22 months) can count recite up to 10, with surprising accuracy. Definitely learnt this at nursery as neither DH or I have done much "counting" with her.

She can't however count objects and doesn't know how to answer the "Do you want 1 chocolate button or 2 chocolate buttons?" questions

I guess from reading the other posts this is at the early end of the spectrum. There are however plenty things that she's at the other end of the spectrum for.

I wouldn't worry, they're all different and I'm sure plenty kids go to school with limited counting ability / experience.

DS who is almost 4 can from what ive witnessed, count upto 13.

He can recite upto 20.

According to what I've read, the most important is not the recitation of numbers, which many can do at age 3 but the concept of number itself. That is, not just parroting the numbers as if they were just another nursey rhyme, actually using them for counting of objects and even basic maths. Being able to recite a list of numbers is not that remarkable at 3, I bet most kids can do something similar with a favourite song. Can these kids count, say, 5 sweets, then tell you how many would be left if they ate 2?