Abstract:
Counting is one of the first mathematical concepts that children learn.
Children learn to count both formally and informally through interaction with others in
their environment Most of the children learn the mathematical concept counting during
the pre-school stage.
There are research findings (Huges, 1986) which show that most of the preschool
children face the problem of counting. The objectives of the study:
1. Examine the patterns of counting numbers applied by the preschool children.
2. Identify the differences of counting patterns of boys and girls in the sample.
3. Identify the pattern of counting errors made by the children in the sample.
Target population for the study comprised preschool children. Representative
sample was selected from the Western province. Stratified random sampling method
was used for selecting the sample of preschools and simple random sampling method
was used for selecting 10 children from each class. The research has established some
major facts which need to be tested in a larger scale sample which would cover more
than one province. On the other hand this sample researched only the areas in the
Western province which records a higher stage of development in human and physical
capital which other provinces of the country have achieved unevenly. And therefore the
findings should not be taken for granted for the whole country. According to the
findings we can sate that teaching instruction procedure has to be designed to eliminate
the problems encountered by the preschool child when counting numbers. Further the
teacher has to pay individual attention on children and he/she should provide practice
session to children on the pronunciation of number words. Further the study points at
the parental and teacher caring of the children in guiding children to acquire the basic
mathematical and language skills b y using correct language with children preparing
necessary environmental factors.
