Hi, Melissa!

First of all, you are doing great! Your son is young, but yet he is learning so much!!!!

As long as he is identifying quantities in other objects, don't worry too much about not recognizing quantities with tiles. It sounds like he is doing a great job identifying quantities. To help with identifying quantities with tiles, you may want to mimic the colors and groupings of the tiles to look like the AL Abacus. You may already be doing this, but if not, give it a try and see if it helps.

You have made an excellent decision to linger on the More War game. This will also help with his identifying quantities.

Worksheets! One of my kids has a variety of learning struggles - including Dyslexia. Even at an older age, writing was quite difficult for him. So, instead of having him write all the answers, we would take turns filling in the answer. This would give him experience in writing the answers, but also 'free him up' to work the equation without having to write the answers down. Another thing I did was to write the worksheet equations (when possible) on the white board. He LOVED writing on the white board. He would use a variety of colors that made it 'pretty'. Other times, we would simply do the worksheet 'verbally'. I would ask him the equations, he would tell me the answer and I would write it down for him. Because your son is so young, you may want to incorporate these ideas into your worksheets. It is not necessary that he 'fills in' every worksheet. What is important is that he understands and learns the math concepts. Writing will come in time.

As far as 'flipping sides' with the tally sticks, don't worry about it too much. You can correct him when he flips sides, by gently saying, 'Remember, the full side goes on the left' or whatever terminology works best for your son. Just has he learns to read going from left to right, it will become more and more natural for him to 'fill up' the left side before moving to the right. By your gentle reminders, it will help him get into that habit.

You are doing fabulous! Keep up the great work! And as always, if you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to post them here or email RightStart Math directly at info@rightstartmath.com.

Have a great day!
Rachel