If your students are still counting from one instead of counting on, this video is for you.
We walk through exactly how to move struggling learners — and your high flyers — toward the counting on strategy for addition. Whether you're working in a Tier 1 classroom, pulling a small Tier 2 group, or doing intensive Tier 3 intervention, these techniques are designed to be scaffolded to meet any learner where they are — within an RTI or MTSS framework.
Ready to go deeper? Our Primary Numeracy Intervention Program gives you the full system — and you can try part of it completely free. [See the Program →]
Still seeing students count every single object from one? This video shows you exactly how to break that habit.
We walk through how to teach the counting on strategy — guiding students to start from the larger addend instead of counting all over again from one. It's one of the highest-leverage shifts you can make for early addition, and we show you how to make it stick even for your most struggling learners.
Want the complete system behind this strategy? Try our Primary Numeracy Intervention Program — part of it is completely free, no strings attached. [See the Program →]
Make Ten is one of the most powerful addition strategies you can teach — and most students are ready for it in first grade.
This video walks you through exactly how to teach it: starting with hands-on materials your students can touch and manipulate, then gradually moving toward mental computation. Along the way, students build the number decomposition skills they need to compose a ten and build from it confidently — a foundational piece of base ten thinking that pays off for years.
Works for Tier 1, Tier 2, and Tier 3 — and we show you how to adjust it for each.
Strategy cards and downloadable materials are available below, along with our accompanying training webinar.
Want the full intervention system? Try our Primary Numeracy Intervention Program — part of it is free, no commitment needed. [See the Program →]
If your students are stuck on basic addition facts within 20, the Doubles Strategy is one of the fastest ways to get them unstuck.
Instead of counting up from one, students learn to decompose one number to make a double with the other — so 9 + 8 becomes 8 + 8 plus one more. It's a mental shortcut that clicks quickly, especially when introduced with a twenty frame as a visual anchor.
We walk you through the hands-on introduction phase step by step — because when students can touch and see the strategy first, it transfers to mental math much faster.
Strategy cards for easy reference are available for download below, along with our training webinar for additional materials and support.
Want the complete system behind strategies like this one? Try our Primary Numeracy Intervention Program — part of it is completely free. [See the Program →]
Before you teach the standard algorithm for addition and subtraction, teach this.
The Splitting Strategy bridges place value understanding and addition skills — making it one of the most natural next steps in a student's math progression. Instead of jumping straight to the formal algorithm, students learn to split numbers by place value and recombine them, building the kind of number sense that makes the algorithm actually make sense when they get there.
It works across Tier 1, Tier 2, and Tier 3 within both RTI and MTSS frameworks — and the arrow cards needed to introduce it hands-on are available for download below.
Our training webinar walks you through how to use it in practice, with additional materials to support your students.
Want the full progression of strategies like this one, organized into a complete intervention system? Try our Primary Numeracy Intervention Program — part of it is free. [See the Program →]
The Jumping Strategy turns a number line into one of the most powerful tools in your intervention toolkit.
Before students are ready for this strategy, they need a basic understanding of place value and split counting — so if you've been teaching those foundations, this is the natural next step. Once they're ready, the number line gives them a concrete, visual way to jump through numbers in chunks rather than counting one by one.
It's a strategy that builds real number sense — the kind that sticks.
Additional materials and a full walkthrough are available in our training webinar below.
Want the complete progression — from counting strategies all the way through to jumping and beyond? Our Primary Numeracy Intervention Program lays it all out, and part of it is completely free. [See the Program →]
The splitting strategy is one of the most effective bridges between place value understanding and the formal subtraction algorithm. Rather than jumping straight to column-by-column subtraction, students learn to decompose numbers by place value — separating hundreds, tens, and ones — and subtract each part separately before recombining. This approach makes the regrouping process visible and meaningful rather than procedural and mysterious.
Students who understand why they are breaking apart a ten are far better prepared to apply the standard algorithm accurately and independently. Research consistently supports teaching mental math strategies like splitting before or alongside the formal algorithm to build genuine conceptual understanding. Arrow cards are available for download below to support hands-on introduction of this strategy.
The jumping strategy uses a number line to make subtraction visible and spatial. Rather than removing objects or counting backward from a written number, students hop backward along the number line in jumps of tens and ones — keeping the number whole and reasoning about distance rather than digits. This is particularly powerful for subtraction with regrouping because students can see the relationship between the minuend and subtrahend rather than wrestling with borrowing procedures they do not understand. Students need a foundational understanding of place value and split counting before this strategy is introduced — if those foundations are in place, the number line gives them a concrete and reliable tool they can use independently. Number lines are available for download below.
(Teacher Video): Welcome to our instructional video, where we explore a multitude of methods and strategies tailored for teaching the concept of part-whole relationships, specifically focusing on the benchmark number of 5 and 10. In this comprehensive guide, we delve into various pedagogical approaches aimed at fostering a deep understanding of how numbers can be deconstructed and synthesized within the framework of five.
(Student Video): The Part-Part-Whole relationship illuminates the concept of breaking numbers into constituent parts. By employing this strategy, children grasp the correlation between a whole number and the smaller components composing it. This understanding not only aids in arithmetic but also facilitates comprehension of the interconnectedness between addition and subtraction. For a comprehensive array of resources and strategies, we encourage you to explore the Primary Intervention Program Training.
Five Frame Blank (pdf)
DownloadTeacher Video: Instructional video for different methods and strategies for instruction of part / whole 10.
(Student Video): For more resources and strategies, please view the Primary Intervention Program Training.
Place value understanding is not just a prerequisite for multi-digit arithmetic — it is the conceptual lens through which all of our base-ten number system makes sense. Students who truly understand place value know that the 3 in 347 represents 300, not 3 — and that understanding is what allows them to add, subtract, regroup, and round with genuine comprehension rather than procedural guessing. This activity teaches students to quickly add on to a base-ten number by building their understanding of how digits in different positions represent different quantities. Base-ten blocks and arrow cards make the concept concrete before students are expected to work abstractly with written numbers. Downloads are available below.
Once students understand how tens and ones are structured, this activity builds their ability to add single-digit numbers to a base-ten number efficiently — a foundational skill for two-digit addition. Students who can confidently add from a base-ten starting point are ready to begin the jumping and splitting strategies that follow. This activity uses the same arrow card and base-ten block materials to keep the visual model consistent as students move from one concept to the next.
Split counting by place value is the bridge between understanding how numbers are structured and being able to operate on them efficiently. Using both base-ten blocks and arrow cards simultaneously, students learn to decompose any three-digit number into its hundreds, tens, and ones — counting each component separately before connecting what they counted to the actual digit in the number
The strategies on this page are the instructional backbone of the Primary Numeracy Intervention Program — a free K–3 math intervention that organizes these strategies into a complete diagnostic and instructional system. If you are using these strategies in isolation and want a structured framework for sequencing them based on each student's specific gaps, the program gives you exactly that — all free after completing a two-hour training.
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