Math with an ESL student

This week, I had the opportunity to work with a new student who has been in the classroom for three weeks now. He moved here straight from Mexico and had absolutely no English language. The student has picked up on many words in the past few weeks just from being in the classroom, which is so exciting to witness. For the past three days, I have worked on counting numbers with this student. He is able to say "1, 2, 3, 6, 9," in that order. I have been consistently working on number order with him by showing him the numbers and pointing out, with number cards, that he skips some (I have him point to the cards as he counts). Seeing his facial expressions, I know that he knows he is skipping some numbers, but he just can't remember how to say them. I gave him hints by saying the number in Spanish and asking him, in Spanish, to say the number in English. This helps the student a lot. Today, before leaving, I asked him to count with me in English. Without any help, he counted from 1 to 10, without exempting any numbers! It was so exciting!

Even though the student usually has trouble counting from 1 to 10 in order, he has been doing great with comparing two different numbers. Most of the class can take a sum of two numbers and another sum, and state which sum is greater. But since the ESL student is at an American Pre-K level, he is not able to do that. Instead, him and I compare only two individual numbers (instead of the usual 4). The student is able to tell me which number is greater, or mas in Spanish, which is awesome for the level he is at. I'm eager to see how well he will improve throughout the rest of the year!