A child who used objectsas a representation of the unique elements in each set might
have set out six containers to represent cups, placed five objects in each container,
and found the answer by counting the total objects one by one. The child might
also have set out six groups of five objects each and counted the total objects one
That is, the child said, “One, two, three, four, five"; set out one object; continued counting, “Six, seven, eight, nine, ten"; set out a second object; and so on
until the sixth object was set out. The answer was the last counting word spoken,
“Thirty.” A child who used objects as a reference might have set out five objects
to represent a general set of five marshmallows and used that as a reference set to
count six groups of five. Finally, a child might have used a combination of tallies
and references. .