Saying numbers in order
Many children start saying the numbers in order soon after they turn 2. In US studies, most 3-year-olds could say the numbers to eight or ten, though saying the numbers comes well before knowing what they mean.
We haven't yet found studies that measured the age when most children start. The sections below say what is known.
How sure are we?
Not sure yet. Studies checked counting along the way, not when it starts, and how high children count varies a lot by language and family. How we know this
What it’s a sign of
Your child is learning the number words as a list, which comes before understanding what each number means.
How high children count differs a lot between languages and how much counting they hear at home. For example, Russian-speaking children counted fewer things than English- and Japanese-speaking children of the same age, and children from lower-income families had learned fewer number words.
No study we read measured when children first count to five or ten, so we can't give an age range.
A main source for the ages
One, two, three, four, nothing more: An investigation of the conceptual sources of the verbal counting principles
Mathieu Le Corre, Susan E. Carey · 2007 · Cognition
- Children
- About 180 children in two studies
- Where
- The United States
- Ages
- 2 to 5½ years
- How
- Researchers asked children to give a puppet a number of toys
- What it found
- Children learned "one", then "two", then "three" before understanding how counting works. Children who knew up to "three" were about 3½ on average. Most could already recite the numbers to eight.
- Limits
- Mostly families from one country. These are average ages of children at each step, not the age when half of children get there.
A main source for the ages
How counting represents number: What children must learn and when they learn it
Barbara Wiseheart Sarnecka, Susan E. Carey · 2008 · Cognition
- Children
- About 70 children
- Where
- The United States
- Ages
- About 3 to 4 years
- How
- Researchers asked children to give a puppet a number of toys
- What it found
- Almost all these children could say the numbers to ten. About half understood how counting tells you how many, and children who knew up to "three" were about 3½ on average.
- Limits
- A small group from one country.
A main source for the ages
From grammatical number to exact numbers: Early meanings of ‘one’, ‘two’, and ‘three’ in English, Russian, and Japanese
Barbara Wiseheart Sarnecka, V.G. Kamenskaya, Yuko YAMANA, T OGURA, Y YUDOVINA · 2006 · Cognitive Psychology
- Children
- About 160 children
- Where
- The United States, Russia and Japan
- Ages
- About 3 on average
- How
- Researchers asked children to give a puppet a number of toys
- What it found
- Children learned "one", "two" and "three" in the same order in all three languages, though the timing differed between languages.
- Limits
- Average counting results only; the shares at each step are in figures we haven't read.
A main source for the ages
The real preschoolers of Orange County: Early number learning in a diverse group of children
Barbara Wiseheart Sarnecka, James Negen, Nicole R. Scalise, Meghan C. Goldman, Jeffrey N. Rouder · 2023 · Journal of Numerical Cognition
- Children
- About 500 children
- Where
- Orange County, California, from many backgrounds
- Ages
- 3 to 6 years
- How
- Researchers tested children's counting and number words
- What it found
- At about 4½ on average, most children could count to ten. Children from lower-income families had learned fewer number words than children from higher-income families.
- Limits
- One area of one country. It doesn't give the age when half of children reach each step.
If you’re worried about your child, talk to your child and family health nurse or GP.
Last checked 2 November 2026