"Give them the tools so that they can finish the job."

"Let's do that together. Count from 16 to 20 with me. Ready." (Signal) Touch each number and count with the student. Say, "Nice going. You counted from 16 to 20. Let's do that one more time." Count from 16 to 20 with me. Ready." (Signal). Count with the student. "Great job."

"Now do that all by yourself. Count to from 16 to 20 for me. Ready." (Signal). Listen to the student count. "Excellent counting. Do that one more time. Ready." (Signal). Listen to the student count from 16 to 20 again. Say, "Great counting."

Correction Procedure:
If the child cannot count to 20 without making errors, change the task. Cover the last five numbers and count from 10 to 15. When the student can reliably count to 15, add the last 5 numbers and count to 20.

Task 3: Rote Counting from 10 to 15 from memory. Think and Say Numbers from 10 to 15
Cover the numbers with the blank piece of paper. Say to the student, "Now we are going to learn to count from memory. I am going to count from 10 to 15. Listen. 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15. Listen again. 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15."

"Do that with me. Count from 10 to 15. Ready." (Signal) Count from 10 to 15 with the student. Repeat.

"Good job. Now count all by yourself from 10 to 15. Ready." (Signal) Student counts from 10 to 15. Repeat. "Super work!"

Correction Procedure:
If the student cannot count to 15 without making errors, return to Task 1.

Task 4: Rote Counting from 15 to 20 Think and Say Numbers from 15 to 20
Repeat Task 3 with numbers 15 to 20.

Fluency Checks: See and Say Numbers or Think and Say Numbers.
When students can count fluently, they can say numbers at 300 counts per minute with no more than 2 errors. When they are touching each number the count will drop to 100-150 counts per minute. Before we move on to more complex skills, we need to be sure that the student can think and say the numbers from 1-20 at 300 counts per minute with no more than 2 errors.

Say to the student, "Now we will do a fluency check for counting from 10 to 20. I will time you for 30 seconds. You will count from 10 to 20 as many times as you can until I say, Thank You. First I will say Ready. Then I will say Please begin. After 30 seconds I will say Thank You. Count from 10 to 20 as many times as you can. Ready. Please begin." Wait for 30 seconds, then say, "Thank You." To calculate the score, count the number of times the student counted from 10 to 20 and multiply that number by 11. Then add any other counts from the last count where the student did not get to 20. Subtract any errors from this score. Multiply the total number of correct counts by 2 to get a count per minute for correct counts. Multiply the number of errors by 2 to get a count per minute for errors. Record both scores.

Note: If you do not do the fluency check each day, you will never know whether or not the student has fluent counting skills. You will not know whether to review or to go on to new tasks. To the extent that you do not know whether or not the student is fluent at this task, you risk putting the student at risk of failure on the subsequent tasks. Do the fluency checks daily until the student reaches 300 counts/minute with no more than 2 errors.

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