A delight to rediscover
I had forgotten this little gem of a program, and only recently rediscovered it on my system. Sometimes we forget the genius in simplicity. Children can learn simple and sophisticated mathematical concepts through experimentation and generalization, both guided and exploratory. A far better approach to “the basics” than returning to the good old days of worksheets and speed tests.
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Great
Great app, it's easy to use and fun!
Confusing
Explanation on how to play is a problem. I don't see any tutorial on how to use this app.
A Novel and Compelling Approach to Developing Number Sense
It's rare to find a math app that leverages the multitouch capabilities of the iPad in a pedagogically meaningful way, but TouchCounts succeeds brilliantly in creating a tactile environment for young children to explore counting, addition, and subtraction. The premise is simple: Each finger tap of the iPad's screen increases the count by one, with children receiving immediate visual feedback (the appearance of the numbers 1, 2, 3, ...) along with accompanying audio (the numbers read aloud). Children soon discover that there's no need to limit their counting to ones. Tapping eight fingers simultaneously, for example, leapfrogs the count by 8, and repeated taps of 8 generate the skip-counting sequence 8,16, 24, 32... This is just one example of how fundamental mathematical concepts arise naturally and concretely through children's play with the app. A second mode of the app operates similarly, but now children can push numbers together to add them and split numbers apart with their fingers to subtract. As a mathematics educator jaded by the flood of mediocre math apps, I was delighted by the novelty of this approach and believe that TouchCounts has tremendous potential for helping children develop number sense.
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Fantastic
An excellent app for teaching and reinforcing early mathematics concepts. I especially love the operations portion that allows children to see numbers within numbers. Great for parents, too. Wish I had it when my children were little!
