10 ways to practice number identification

It can get challenging to think of new ways to practice the same skill over and over! It is especially challenging for special education teachers. We often have the same students for multiple years and our students don’t make progress as quickly as students without disabilities. That’s why we NEED multiple ways to teach the same skill! Here are 10 different ways to practice number identification with your students. 

During direct instruction, staff teach students about numbers. Most of my students need a one to one setting in order to learn new skills. We do an hour of direct instruction work centers in my classroom every day. During this time, I break skills down into small segments and teach that small unit of info until mastery. Once students have mastered that small unit, we add in another small segment of the skill. This helps students feel successful and naturally builds in review of mastered skills When teaching about numbers, we use a variety of number concepts materials. 

Learn more about our direct instruction work centers: Direct Instruction Work Centers Blog Post

We use the materials pictured above, in the sensory bin as well. To practice numbers, we hide the number cards in the sensory bin and have students find them. Once they find the cards, students take turns identifying the numbers. To reinforce number concepts, you can have students clap or do another gross motor task that many times. Other options include putting the numbers in sequential order, counting to that number, counting on from that number, etc. 

Here, we did a different spin on a sensory bin. Using the ice bucket from our multi-sensory polar animals unit, we fished out the number concepts cards. 

An easy and low prep way to practice number identification is by playing a memory game. Have students label each number they turn over, so they get lots of opportunities to practice labeling numbers. 

Number puzzles are great for working on number identification skills! We have students complete the puzzles during work centers, when they finish other work before the rest of the class, etc. 

My students love to play in shaving cream so much, they don’t even notice that we are working on number identification at the same time!

Task boxes are AH-MAZING! You can target just about any skill and teach your students to be independent. Here are some of the number identification tasks during work task box time:

Read more…. Blog Posts About Task Boxes

Interactive books are one of my most favorite ways to teach anything!! My students LOVE them, so they naturally attend and participate. This is a page from the Transportation Interactive Books set. Students have to identify the number at the top of the page and then attach that many pictures. 

This is another popular activity in my room. Anything that gets my students up and moving is always a hit! We do count and write the room activities for every theme unit. This photo is from our Body Parts and Five Senses Unit. 

These are perfect for practicing number identification. Here’s a FREEBIE to help your students practice. All students need to do it roll a die, identify the number and then color the matching number on their sheet. Tip: save money by buying dice at the dollar store. They even have over-sized ones for students with visual and fine motor issues. 

We use this poster to practice number identification and number concepts. It offers lots of opportunities to practice numbers!

We follow up with these All About Number sheets:

Do you have a different way you practice number identification? Share it in the comments so we can all learn!!