NUMERACY 101 * Toddlers and 2-year-olds learn their numbers one by one and in order. Do not expect your little one to understand the concept of 3 before she has a firm grasp of 2 , or 2 before 1 . Two-year-olds might successfully retrieve one of something, but if you ask for two, three, or more of anything you'll likely get a handful. Two- and 3-year-olds can count small sets of things... How many cookies are on your plate? One, two, three. Yet most lack the understanding that the last number counted, 3 , means that you have three cookies. Yum! First counting books focus on numbers 1 and 2, such as What is 2? by Molly Carroll, above. That said, board books that introduce numbers 1 through 10 are easy to adapt to your toddler's level of understanding. Simply talk a lot about the low numbers and a little about the high. *Based on research by Karen Wynn, Ph.D., Lab Director at The Infant Cognition Center at Yale University
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