Count from the right

💡 How it plays and why it helps

The same box can be second and sixth at once. It depends where you start counting. Count from the right is a Pre-K positions game with strips of five to seven blank boxes and one counter. Each round has five strips. The instruction is read aloud, and your child taps the counter's position, counted from the right end. Every answer is checked and the position is named: from the right, the counter is on box 6.

Position words like first, second and third are ordinal numbers, and they only make sense once you agree on a starting point. Most children assume the left, because that is where reading starts. Starting from the right shows them that position is a choice, not a fixed label.

The likely mistake is counting from the left out of habit. On a seven-box strip with the counter second from the left, that gives 2, and 2 is one of the choices; the answer is 6. Put a finger on the far right box first and ask, "Where do we start this time?" Praise the switch: "You started from the other side."