do you correct your child when they are strictly not wrong

[Morph2]

DS turned 2 last month. He's been bang on average with everything although probably abit slow with talking but is coming on nicely now.

He's been really good at picking up numbers, i've not tried to teach him as such but he's just picked them up from toys.

Anyway he recognises 1 to 10 written down but today for example we were at a toddlers soft play and he brings a little stepping stone mat to me with the number 13 on it, thats 13 i say, 'no he says its 1, 3' I told him 1 and 3 togehter are 13 'no he says its 1, 3'. I don't bother to argue.

We always count stairs but the last few days i've noticed on the way down we get a few steps down (can't remember the number) and he says 'no its nine' and if i try and correct him he says 'no nine', then i noticed near the bottom of the stairs whatever number we got to he says 'no 2'. I worked out its the number of the stair he is remembering from when we are going up the stairs so its not strictly wrong! Was thinking of counting down when we go downstairs or would that be more confusing?

And he is just 2?

He is a genius.

HTH.

yes, blimey if that's average, dd is a dunce.
Probably as he is getting to grips with numbers he is playing around with them, working out that they can be used in different ways etc. My sister teaches 5and 6yr olds and has a number of kids in her class who struggle with maths. She says that at some point during early years at primary school, numbers suddenly 'click'and they are able to grasp, eg ' the fourness of four' without having to count up to it. Numbers for two year olds are I should thinl, an interesting system of words. At 23 mo dd ' counts' in much the sa me way as she repeats a nursery rhyme... just like a sequence of words to apply to objects. This is making my head hurt.

it sort of started end of last summer, i bought him some of those foam floor mats with the numbers in them as they were reduced in asda (£2.50), i thought they would be handy for the garden, but he plays with them all the time.

He is rubbish at feeding himself (so very behind at that) and also he's rubbish at ride on cars, he just hasn't got a clue and sits there or drags himself forward with both feet at the same time, you see kids his age at the toddler group whizzing round

He sounds very advanced!! My daughter is 3 and hasn't grasped numbers as well as that yet! I think counting backwards on the way back down would be a great idea but tell him that you are going to count backwards so he doesn't think you have gone crazy!

My ds is nearly 4 and still says that 13 is one and three. I don't argue, we have enough other things to fight about.

But 1 and 3 is correct. Place value is a very difficult concept. Just try and imagine if you lived in Babylonia who had a base sixty number system. Flaming nightmare. I have every sympathy with your ds trying to get his head round our nutty base ten number system.

p.s. he sounds like a genius.

Enjoy the toddler logic. It's fab. Just agree, makes life easier . It's only when they get to about 5 that they have to start belonging to the real world and only gradually....

thanks for the comments, he seems to be enjoying himself with numbers at the minute so want to keep things just fun so will go along with what he says.

He also does a thing with his foam numbers i forgot about when i posted before. He looks at them says the number then turns them upside down, 6 obviously becomes 9 and vice versa so he says both numbers, when he turns the five upside down he says 'two'

The other numbers he turns upside down then throws aside as they don't turn into another number

realistically though i think its just recognition and he's not the next albert einstein, the same as looking at a picture of a cat or dog in a book and saying what it is, just some kids prefer cute cuddly animals and some prefer boring numbers!

DD does a similar sort of thing with counting - and similarly it's just due to early exposure and recognition. Having an older sibling helps! Like you when she makes 'mistakes' (because at that age it's just play, isn't it? Who cares if they're right or wrong) I just play along. I wouldn't worry about the correcting thing; like language acquisition he'll pick up the right numerical order in his own time.

My DS does similar with letters - so he'll point at an "M" and say "N" - so I just go "yes, that letter M does look really like an N, and they sound similar too, don't they?"

With numbers, he gets some right and some wrong and I normally just try similar; ("Yes, that's a number, well done, it's a number 5", if he points at a 5 and says 3).

Mine loves counting too, and I will often hear him in his cot in the morning "wun, oo, tree, four, ive, siiix, evern, eight, niyne, ten".

He so far has never said the word "thank you".

My son is 4 next month and he is number mad, he can count to 100 and backwards from 50.He knows all the bus numbers and watching any program to do with numbers. However he cannot write his own name and has no idea of letters. He just seems to have a thing for numbers. My DD was writing her name at 4 but couldnt count past 20 and has only just grasped counting backwards she is 5. I think the reason my son enjoys numbers is because I was always counting with my DD as she found it hard to grasp, he just picked up on it. At pre school he has outgrown all the number work they do but is below average on the literacy and writing side. Different children seem to grasp things at different ages!!!

Watching this thread with interest, not to do with numbers exactly, but as Morph questions, should we be correcting them when they're half right? DD is nearly 16 months and is doing really well with her words, but she'll do quite a few animal noises rather than saying the proper names - should I just be encouraging her by saying for eg: Yes, yes, there's a rah rah but letting her know at the same time that a rah rah is in fact a lion? It would seem a shame to correct her when she's so enthusiastic!

I correct while praising them for being right.
So I'd say "Well done, that is a 1 and a 3. We put them together like that and it says 13"
Or "That's right. There is a lion!"

You're acknowledging their knowledge, and giving them the right answer, just like if they mispronounce something: "I drinked it" "That's right, you drank it." They don't see it as a correction when you do it in a positive way.

There is a correlation between mathmatical logic and physical ability, to encourage maths it might be an idea to get him jumping to number patterns, basic hop-scotch, riding a bike (for many children riding a bike without stabilisers preceeds push-alongs if parents are willing to get an aching back helping them balance for a few weeks), crawling through tunnels and lots of balancing (beams, stones, neighbours walls !).

With the stairs, there is a difference between "counting" and "labelling". He is labelling the stairs with a number for each; counting will come later. If you are interested, try putting some sweets (or apples or whatever) in a row and count them with him. Then mix them around and ask him to count them again, see what happens.

I agree that this is labelling. It is also learning by rote.

Your DS clearly has a very good memory and is intelligent.

He knows which sound you make as you stand on each stair and has interpreted those sounds as names.

He also knows the names you give to certain number shapes, which is pretty good for his age. if you haven't taught him to recognise 2D shapes you could do that now.

He is right that the numbers he brought to you had those particular names. He didn't accept your assertion that they are 13 because he has no idea what 13 is. He probably has no idea that the sounds and the shapes relate to quantities and that the quantities increase as you progress through the numbers. His understanding is limited to labels and shapes at the moment.

If he is telling you information which is correct in terms of his own understanding you should definitely not correct him by introducing a concept he cannot understand. It will only confuse him and he'll switch off.

I cared for a child who could spell his name, Mummy and Daddy at the age of 15 months. He didn't understand what he was doing. He was simply repeating the sounds his parents made as they pointed to the letters of those three words on his bedroom wall at bedtime every night. he then started pointing to other words and making the same sounds. In his mind he was linking his recognition of writing with the labels he had been taught and because that was the limit of his understanding I didn't correct him, I praised him for recognising writing.

Hmmm, mathematical logic and physical ability. THat's an interesting one. Maybe possible to have the first and be a little behind on the second though . They do learn at this age by physically doing though.

Yes, both my DCs loved that when you turn 6 upside down you get 9 and when you turn M upside down you get W. Toddler/child logic is great as pp said, they take what they know and tag extra stuff onto that. It's beautiful, and a bit like spelling, only gradually do they need to know what the adult correct version is, especially if they haven't got a hope in h** of understanding due to that stage of development not kicking in yet. My 5 year old gave me a written invite to his "soopa hiro party" today. First I told him it was "super", then a bit later I told him it was "hero". I haven't corrected "cum" to "come" yet. Ahhhh....

Agree with PP's.

He's learning the words etc.. it's nothing to worry about, and certainly don't challenge him - this is how they learn!

If you put 7 blocks in front of him, can he count them? That's the true measure of genius

ok i've checked him on counting things and he can seem to count things as well, not as high as 13 but to about 5 or 6, although if the things are not in a straight line he tends to lose track of where he's got to and might count one item twice.

Strictly speaking, 13 isn't 1 and 3...it's 10 and 3