A key core competency of mathematics for your first and second grader is that of being able to Count by twos and threes. As easy a task as this might seem to you or me, this competency often presents much trouble to youngsters and is often only learned after much repetition and painful experience. Yet there is a very easy and neat trick---might I add---to facilitate its learning so that your youngsters can focus their attention on other important learning skills.
In working with kindergarteners through second graders, I observed that counting, let us say, from one to twenty was usually learned quite well and usually presented little or no difficulty. Request, however, that this same youngster, who could rattle off effortlessly the numbers from one to twenty, start to count by twos or threes, and you entered a whole new realm of technical difficulty. Unless the pattern is memorized beforehand, this task is not so easy as it seems. What often happens is that the first or second grader starts and stalls, starts and stalls, in a haphazard and fruitless manner.
This does not have to be the case. There is an easy way to teach the counting by twos and threes so that your youngster does not have to struggle until the pattern has been memorized from repetitive performance. Let us demonstrate this method by twos and then extend it to threes. Tell the youngster to first count from one to twenty out loud. Then instruct the youngster to count from one to twenty silently to himself. What you do next is explain that counting by twos and threes is simply a combination of counting out loud and silently at the same time.
For example, to count by twos, have the youngster begin counting silently and then out loud, alternating in this manner up till twenty. Thus the count for the first six would be "one (silent), two (out loud), three (silent), four (out loud), five (silent), six (out loud)" all the way to twenty. After a few runs the student will get the natural rhythm and flow and after a few times will be able to do this so that it seems as though he were simply counting by twos without the alternating pattern.
Completely analogous would be by threes in which the first six would go "one (silent), two (silent), three (out loud), four (silent), five (silent), six (out loud)." Again, after a few runs, it will seem as though the youngster has mastered this task without any effort at all. In both cases, the twos and threes will be mastered after a number of repetitions of the outlined exercise.
Try this procedure out and you will see that this method provides a pleasant and fun alternative to the traditional method of rote learning. Your youngsters can then apply the time saved on such tasks as learning to count by twos and threes to perhaps mastering their multiplication facts. Happy learning!