By Michèle Mazzocco and Megan Schmitt, University of Minnesota

Picture books are a great tool for discovering mathematics. Books focused on counting are some of the earliest books to which young children are exposed, and there is no shortage of such books at local libraries, with literally thousands of counting books published in the U.S. alone. [1]

From our review of 120 popular counting books, we learned that counting books differ from each other on many dimensions. They differ not only in their content, but also in the ways they portray numbers and what to count. [2] These variations in counting book features are not necessarily good or bad, because what is best will vary from child to child and across periods of development. For these reasons, we do not set out to endorse or discourage use of any specific counting books. Instead, we suggest that there is value in exposing children to many different counting books, and we offer suggestions about which book features to pay attention to when reading counting books with young children.

Learning to Count

All of the counting books we reviewed include some representation of number. Although the numbers in most of these books usually appear in increasing order (such as from one to 10), the range of numbers in some counting books may be more limited or expansive; may appear in descending or sporadic order; and may even involve skip counting with larger numbers. We found that although 76% of the books we reviewed had at least some instances where increasing numerical sequences occurred across consecutive pages, 41% of the books had at least some pages in which numbers occurred out of sequence. (These percentages do not equal 100% because some books had combinations of both types of pages.)

Counting books can serve different purposes depending on the child’s understanding of numbers. For example, counting books initially may be a tool for helping children learn to count, whether that means learning the counting word sequence, the purpose of counting, and some early number words, such as one, two, or three. Then, for children who already have some understanding of counting, these books can provide an opportunity to practice counting and deepen knowledge of counting principles, larger numbers, and numerical properties.

Children who are well aware of what numbers are and how to count can still benefit from these books, especially books that portray how adding one item leads to the next number in the counting sequence. Among the books we reviewed, 91% focused on an inclusive range of numbers, such as all of the numbers between one and 10, as opposed to numbers out of sequence, such as all of the numbers from one to 10 and also 20.

For a child who is still learning the verbal counting sequence, it makes sense to choose counting books in which numbers appear sequentially and in ascending order rather than books where numbers are presented out of sequence for at least part of the book.

Matching Number and Illustration