Give an example to illustrate how language incompetence can interfere with a child's ability to perform a task.

While setting up a classification activity, a teacher gave the chi several round and square buttons. The round buttons were all coloured, while the square ones were all black. Then the teacher field up to round button and asked the children to select all the round buttons from the pile of buttons.

a) Do you think there is anything wrong with the activity? If so, what is wrong?

b) Can the teacher be sure that the children who have done the activity correctly have understood the concept of roundness?

c) How would you alter the activity?

Let us now look at some strategies that may help children in learning how to count.