Mastering One-to-One Correspondence for Kids

What is one-to-one correspondence?

The ability to determine the quantity of an object/s by counting the value or amount starting from one, each time increasing by one. 

Imagine there are five marbles on a table, each marble is counted 1-5, the aim here is to count all the marbles, this is one-to-one correspondence. The following can be done by touching the object or placing the object into a separate area such as a bowl, while counting.

Common errors when learning?

The most common error seen in learning this skill is that children count the same resource twice.

Imagine a child is attempting to count 5 toy dinosaurs, they may rush, and count the same dinosaur twice, which will result in a child counting 6 dinosaurs instead of 5.

To help your child avoid this error, encourage them to slow down when counting the toy dinosaurs. A useful trick is arranging the objects to be counted from left to right, or top to bottom. Organising the objects can help to avoid the child randomly pointing at the resources and mixing up the correspondence.

What is the benefit of one-to-one correspondence?

One-to-one correspondence allows children to develop a number sense and understand numerical values.

How to teach this concept to your child at home:

This skill can be easily taught at home, in the garden, at the shops or at the park. 

This can be done by counting the amount of sliced fruit they have on their plate, or collecting vegetables in the garden, picking flowers in the park and counting the petals, or even arranging groceries during shopping.

Can you count how many apples you have on your plate?

Can you collect 5 flowers?

Can you help me pick 5 oranges?