Numeracy at Year 1

As a family, you can really support your child’s numeracy – the ability to use maths at school and in daily life. Discussing numbers and numeracy each day will help develop your child’s mathematics and numeracy skills.

In the early years of school, your child will be taught numbers, what the number names are and how to write them as words and numerals. Teaching children the relationship between the name of the number, the number and how to say it is important. Your child’s teacher will be able to tell you which numbers the class is learning in lessons each week. You can then practise these numbers with your child at home.

Numeracy and the Year 1 Number Check

Numbers are just one part of learning about numeracy. Understanding numbers is very important in everyday life.

Numbers form a common language to describe many situations. They are used in all subject areas, and in all areas of numeracy and mathematics including measurement, telling the time, money, collecting data, representating data, and describing the probability that things might happen.

Students often start with learning the numbers one to ten before moving beyond them. Zero is an important part of the number sequence, as a placeholder in other numbers and as an individual number value.

Students often find the teen numbers such as 14 challenging. The change in language and the way the numbers sound can make it difficult to remember which digit comes first (for example the 4 or the 1 in 14). Recognition of this concept highlights the important linkage between numeracy and literacy.

It is important to identify children who need extra support in learning numeracy early so teachers and families can plan for any specific support they may need. When this is done early, children have the best possible chance to improve their numeracy skills.

The Hub provides an online Number Check to support schools to identify students who need extra support.

The teacher-administered online Number Check is a quick and easy way to check the numeracy knowledge of Year 1 students at school. The Check is just one part of a numeracy program for your child. The online Number Check is freely available for schools. 

The Check will help the teacher to identify how well children can recognise numbers, count forwards and backwards, count objects and solve simple addition and subtraction problems.

The guide Year 1 Mathematics at school: what to expect aims to help families get a sense of how their Year 1 child is developing in mathematics and numeracy. The guide lists some of the skills your child will be learning at school and suggests ways to support them at home with simple, everyday activities.