Subitizing Teaching Resources

Are you on the hunt for subitizing activities, task cards, worksheets and games for your lesson plans to make sure this math skill sticks in those little minds?

The Teach Starter teacher team has assembled a complete collection of teacher-created printables and digital options to teach your students how to subitize and build their crucial counting and cardinality skills.

Aligned with both TEKS and the Common Core math curriculum, this collection of teacher resources has undergone a careful review by a member of our teacher team to ensure it's ready for your classroom and your students!

Is this your first year teaching this part of the math curriculum, or your first time in a few years? Don't fret! The math teachers on our teaching team have put together a quick refresher on the definition of subitizing and some tips on how to teach this crucial math skill.

What Is Subitizing in Math?

Not familiar with the word subitizing? Don't feel bad — it's not one every teacher learns in college.

Subitizing is the ability to instantly recognize the number of objects in a small group without the need to count them. It's essentially "seeing" amounts of things without being given a number in digit form.

For example, when a student rolls a die, if they can instantly recognize the number of dots on its face, that's because they know how to subitize. Subitizing in kindergarten and 1st grade is all about helping students to relate numbers to actual items or groups of items.

This math concept comes from Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget, the man whose theory of cognitive development is well-regarded in educational circles.

Subitizing Pronunciation — How to Say Subitize

We've had more than a few teachers ask us about the proper subitizing pronunciation. Does the suffix "sub" have a short u sound like the "sub" in subtraction?

It would make sense. After all, they are both math terms. The answer may (or may not!) surprise you.

Subitising is pronounced with a long u sound —/oo/.

The word comes from the Latin subit(us) meaning sudden and has no relation to subtraction at all!

How to Teach Subitizing

It's an important mathematical concept, but just how do you teach subitizing?

The key is to expose students to number patterns so they can begin to compose and decompose numbers mentally, setting the stage for "seeing" those numbers in small groups of objects.

To help you get started, our teaching team has put together dozens of resources, each of which has been reviewed by expert teachers to ensure they're classroom-ready! But we didn't stop there. Try these tips from our team:

1. Add Number Talks to Your Routine

You'll notice plenty of number talks resources for teachers on the Teach Starter site, and for good reason. Giving students a chance to play with numbers every day — even if it's just for 5 or 10 minutes — creates repetition that can help your students build their number sense.

2. Apply the 4 Corners Concept to Subitizing

Mount numbers on the classroom wall, and use the Teach Starter random dice roller to randomly roll the die. Project the result onto your whiteboard or smartboard, and direct students to move to the wall with the correct number.

3. Use Hands-on Manipulatives

It may sound obvious, but don't forget to pull out those manipulatives! Dice and dominoes are particularly helpful for building number sense.