Numbers 1 to 100 in English: Spelling and Pronunciation

Practice on screen

Look at the picture or number and choose the right English word. Ten questions each round.

How to teach it

1. 1. Count real things every day

   Count stairs, spoons, toy cars or steps to the door, out loud and in English. Touch or move each thing as you say its number, so the child links one number word to one object. Two minutes a day is plenty to begin with.

2. 2. Teach 1 to 10 before anything else

   Stay with 1 to 10 until the child can say them in order, backwards and when you point to a digit at random. A number line on the wall or a set of ten cards helps: hold up a card and ask, "What number is it?"

3. 3. Show how the tens and units fit together

   Write 20, 30, 40 and so on in one row and 1 to 9 in another. Pick one from each row and say the number together: forty and three make forty-three. Children enjoy seeing that a few words can build every number up to 99.

4. 4. Clap the difference between -teen and -ty

   Thirteen and thirty sound alike to a learner. Say them in pairs and clap on the strong part: thir-TEEN, THIR-ty; four-TEEN, FOR-ty. Then say one of the two and let the child point to 13 or 30.

5. 5. Play number games

   Bingo with numbers, hopscotch, "What is missing?" with a row of number cards, or a shop game with pretend prices all give a reason to say and hear numbers many times without it feeling like a drill.

6. 6. Write the words, not only the digits

   Once the child reads a little, match digit cards to word cards (8 and eight), then copy the words. Tracing and writing number words is a good way to fix the spellings that are not regular, such as eight, twelve and forty.

Common mistakes

• Writing "fourty" instead of forty

  Four and fourteen keep the letter u, but forty does not. The same kind of change happens with five: fifteen and fifty, not "fiveteen" or "fivety".

• Mixing up thirteen and thirty

  The numbers 13 to 19 end in -teen and carry the stress at the end. The tens end in -ty and carry the stress at the start. When a learner cannot hear the difference, say the number slowly and show the digits.

• Leaving out the hyphen

  Numbers from 21 to 99 that are made of a ten and a unit are written with a hyphen: twenty-one, thirty-five, ninety-nine. Round tens and hundreds have no hyphen: twenty, one hundred.

• Spelling eight, twelve and ninety by sound

  Eight has a silent gh, and eighteen and eighty have only one t. Twelve ends in -lve. Ninety keeps the e of nine, but ninth drops it. These are spellings to copy and practice, not to work out.

• Saying "one hundred one" or "one hundred and one"

  Both are used. British English puts "and" after hundred: one hundred and one. American English often leaves it out: one hundred one. Choose one way for your lessons and keep to it.