I interviewed Ben on or very close to his third, fourth, and fifth birthdays. His parents brought him into a room on the Columbia University campus where Ben and I sat at a table to do various “games,” as a videographer captured the interactions. His parents stayed in the room, observing and occasionally interacting with Ben. As you will see, the atmosphere did not involve high-stakes pressured testing: Ben clearly enjoyed the interactions, which lasted for quite a long time. (After I interviewed him for about 15 minutes, Janet Eisenband interviewed him for another 30. All this with a boy of three years!) His father told me that after the first session that Ben looked forward to playing again with “Dr. Ginsboo.” Here is the story of Ben’s counting.
Spoken and written number words permeate the child’s everyday world and are used for many different purposes. “Here are two cookies for you” clearly talks about how many whereas “Sesame Street is on channel 13” does not. Consider other uses of number such as, “Press the 7 button. We have to go to the top floor.” “You can’t have all three blocks. Give one to your brother.” “Wow, you weigh 36 pounds!” “We’re going to read the story of the Three Pigs.” “One two, buckle your shoe. Three, four, shut the door.” “How high can you count?” “Two, four, six, eight. Who do we appreciate?” Number words have different kinds of meanings that children must figure out.
Early on, children take a great interest in number words and ideas. Some children love counting as high as they can, like grown-ups. They may even be interested in the name of the “biggest” number.
At the age of three, Ben had this unsatisfactory conversation with his mother.
Ben: Mama, but what is the LAST number? The one at the end.
Christine: There is no last number. You can count forever without reaching the end.
Ben: Mama, are you sure you’re listening to me?!
Let’s try to listen carefully to Ben. Here is part of an interview with him at age three. Janet asks him to check the number of toy bears. Instead of determining how many, Ben seizes on the opportunity to display his knowledge of counting numbers.
So at the age of three, Ben rattled off the number words one to ten, in the correct order. He may have been a bit precocious, but children generally know many number words by this age (Sarneka & Carey, 2008).
A year later, Ben, now four, counts (with his hand in his mouth) up to 17, skipping only 16. After that, with a little help, he makes it up to 20, which he seems to think is the last number.
Resource type Video