What Is 'Say Ten' Counting?

By Jeff Suzuki, Ph.D. July 16, 2015

The "say ten" counting method used by some math teachers is based on the way Chinese, Japanese, and South Korean children learn to count in their native languages.

Studies over the past quarter century have revealed a surprising fact: Children in China, Japan, and South Korea can, by the end of preschool, count to 100 reliably, and solve nearly three times as many simple arithmetic problems as children in the U.S.

What’s the cause for this Asian advantage? Most researchers believe language is the key difference. Almost every language has distinct words for the numbers 1 through 10, and studies show that children around the world learn these words at about the same rate. But in English and many other languages, the names for numbers after 10 follow an irregular pattern: eleven, twelve, thirteen, and so on. As a result, older state standards only required children to count to 20 by the end of kindergarten.

In contrast, the Chinese child knows “the number after 10” as shi yi, which is literally “ten [and] one.” This is followed by shi er (“ten [and] two”), shi san (“ten [and] three”), and so on. The Japanese and Korean languages have similar naming structures. It's only a small exaggeration to say that once a child in China knows how to count to 10, he or she can count to 100.

The value of the Asian number words is magnified when we begin to write numbers. For example, consider “twenty-seven.” The child who has learned that “twenty” is written 20 and “seven” is written 7 is likely to transcribe “twenty-seven” as 207. In contrast, the Chinese child would refer to this number as “two tens [and] seven”, which (in the corresponding Chinese characters) is written “2 tens 7,” and leading more easily to the final form of 27.

Mathematics educators recommend emulating Asian languages through the use of saying (or keeping) 10 numeration. Thus: A carton of eggs has “ten and two” eggs (or possibly “ten and eight”). Three quarters is “three tens and five” cents. There are “six tens” minutes in an hour.

Note that in the early 20th century, grammarians declared that "and" should not be used when giving whole numbers, and that number names are never pluralized. Thus, "ten and eight" is considered grammatically incorrect, as is "six tens." However, both of these serve as useful scaffolding, helpful for building understanding even if we must remove it later: thus, after “ten and nine” comes “ten and ten,” which readily becomes “two tens.”

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