1, 2, 3 Books Add Up to Reading Fun!

NUMERACY 101*

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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