As we are mathematician, we like to keep the mathematical concepts consistent through out the educational upbringing of our kids. I will explain this using the following example.
It is natural that we are introducing young kids to the word of letters and numbers. With letters, people tend to use letter naming root (using the letter's names) or phonics root (using the sounds that the letter make). With numbers, well, we all tend to start with one, two, three.. of course.
However, have you ever thought about what you want your kid to have in mind when you say eg. five?
I believe that you would like them to be able to associate with the word FIVE a group of five objects. This is because it is what 5 stands for - a group of five objects.
However, to keep this concept consistent in our kid's heads, we should be using the word five ONLY when they are indeed looking at 5 objects at a time.
So, in similar way, we should be saying 'one', when they can see a single object; saying 'two', when they are looking at two objects; saying 'three', when they are looking at three objects.. etc.
Seams logical, doesn't it?
Unfortunately, there is one crime on the mathematical development of our kids that we adults make all the time. This is that when we are counting and pointing to single objects, we call out cardinal numbers (which represent quantity) instead of ordinal numbers (which represent position or rank in a sequential order).
What is the difference?
Each of the ordinal number describes a single object, ei.:
- 'first', means an object which starts the line;
- 'second', describes a single object which is second in line;
- third, describes a single object which is third in line, etc.
Whereas each of the cardinal numbers represents different quantity of objects.
We've tried to keep these differences in mind, when our toddlers were starting on their mathematical journeys. Will you?
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