In the early years students are beginning to explore number sense in a concrete way. Students enter these levels pre-numerate unable to count yet still able to use the Approximate Number System (ANS) to compare distinctly different quantities. “For babies and young children, sizing up (estimating) is not a thought process, but an implicit perceptual skill that gradually, with experience and language development, becomes a way of consciously differentiating and comparing quantities in the world around them,” (Krasa, Tzanetopoulos, & Maas, 2023) students entering the early years are beginning to have both the language and experience to explore quantity. In the early years our focus in on counting and subitizing skills. Students primarily demonstrate their knowledge through manipulating objects and oral counting. In the early years students demonstrate a wide range of ability. As students move through the early years, they build their memory and attention skills allowing them to pay attention to several objects and to remember where they are in the counting sequence. Students increased ability to pay attention to two or more things at once is crucial to their ability to do mathematics and understand numbers and number relationships.
| Domain | skill group | skill descriptor | 1 | 2 |
| Numbers and counting | recognizes numbers | spoken | 3 | 5 |
| written | 3 | 5 | ||
| subitizing | dots | 3 | 5 | |
| 2 colour dots | ||||
| with objects | 3 | 5 | ||
| copy with objects | 3 | 5 | ||
| Counting | to ____in sequence | 5 | ||
| objects and images to _____ with one-to-one correspondence | 3 | 5 | ||
| counts objects with one-to-one correspondence to determine how many | 3 | 5 | ||
| forward by ____ from zero | 1 | |||
| Representing Numbers | whole numbers | with objects | 5 | |
| with drawings | 5 | |||
| with numerals | 5 | |||
| Number Relationships | composition and decomposition | composes numbers to___ in many ways using objects | 4 | |
| composes numbers to___ in many ways using pictures | 4 | |||
| decomposes numbers to___ in many ways using objects | 4 | |||
| decomposes numbers to___ in many ways using pictures | 4 | |||
| comparing and ordering – base 10 numeration | compares quantities to | 3 | 5 |