Review: Making learning to count fun for preschoolers
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 03 2, 2013
According to author Sandra L. Portman, "Learning can be fun when it is combined with colorful pictures and lots of interaction." That's the approach that she's taken in Book 1 Learn the Numbers, where she uses a 4-step approach to teach preschool-age kids to count. Each of the four steps raises the bar a bit until a child is comfortable with numbers from 1 to 10 and can relate numbers to actual physical quantities.The first level begins the process by teaching the appearance and pronunciation of numbers. The author recommends teaching this basic lesson to very young children. The next level emphasizes recognizing a given number in a group of numbers, with the following level having a child identifying all numbers in a group of numbers. The fourth and final level is an interactive quiz where feedback is given for both correct and incorrect answers. By this time, the child should be capable of reading the simple text and taking the quiz without help from a parent. In most cases, this should happen by the age of four.In my opinion, the graduated approach is a sensible one that should be effective in teaching a child to recognize numbers and count to ten before they enter a preschool program. The book makes good use of colorful graphics and simple text to hold a child's attention and make learning fun. (Note: I read the book on my Kindle Fire HD 7" tablet, where the color graphics stood out. I also loaded the book on my Kindle Paperwhite, an e-ink reader with grayscale graphics - the lessons were just as effective, although the graphics may not be as attention-getting.)