Subitise & Match 1–5 Numeracy Assessment: Early Years supports your young learners in developing foundational number understanding through engaging, visual activities. This hands-on subitising assessment encourages students to connect numerals to a variety of common visual number representations, including fingers, dot patterns, stars and ten frames.

This resource has been designed to assess key early number concepts such as subitising, number recognition and one-to-one correspondence. It is ideal for use in formative and summative assessment situations, small group teaching, early intervention sessions or individual learning portfolio collections. The format is simple yet purposeful, offering meaningful insights into how students perceive and connect with early numeracy visuals.

Subitise & Match 1–5 Numeracy Assessment: Early Years supports teachers in identifying whether students are confidently subitising—recognising small groups of objects without counting—or relying on one-to-one strategies. It also highlights students’ ability to match symbolic and visual representations of numbers from 1 to 5, a key skill in early numeracy development. With five familiar visual styles included (numerals, dots, ten frames, stars and fingers), students engage with multiple ways of seeing number—an important part of early mathematical flexibility.

Use this assessment at the beginning of the year to establish a baseline, or revisit it during the term to observe growth and development. The assessment can be completed in one session or used as a warm-up across several days. It also includes a detailed and editable rubric to ensure consistent teacher observations, and an answer key to streamline the marking process.

Key Learning Outcomes:

• ✅ Recognise and subitise quantities from 1 to 5
• ✅ Match numerals to a variety of visual number representations
• ✅ Demonstrate one-to-one correspondence
• ✅ Build early verbal number fluency
• ✅ Develop visual discrimination between similar number patterns

What’s Included:

• Subitising and matching assessment worksheet
• Editable teacher rubric for consistent observation
• Answer sheet for fast marking

Materials Needed:

• Printed assessment worksheet
• Pencils and coloured markers or crayons
• Optional reference visuals (e.g. ten frames, finger cards, dot cards)

How to Use:

• Begin with a warm-up using dice, ten frames or finger counting games to activate number recognition.
• Review the task instructions with students, emphasising subitising rather than counting one-by-one.
• Guide students to look at the pictures and say the number they see without counting.
• Have students draw lines or use colour coding to match each numeral with its visual representations.
• Encourage verbal reasoning: “How do you know it’s 4?” or “What helped you match these?”
• Use the rubric to record student strategies and confidence with subitising.

Ideas for Classroom Use:

• 💡 Use during small group numeracy rotations for focused observation
• 💡 Add to portfolios as part of early number concept tracking
• 💡 Use with intervention groups needing consolidation of subitising skills
• 💡 Display completed work to model different ways of seeing numbers
• 💡 Revisit at multiple points in the term to measure growth and fluency

Top Teacher Tips:

• 💛 Use real-world visual supports like dice and ten frames to reinforce pattern recognition
• 💛 Encourage students to verbalise their thinking to support mathematical language
• 💛 Observe whether students subitise instantly or begin counting each item—this can guide next steps
• 💛 Create Your Own Match: Invite students to draw their own number sets and match them with numerals
• 💛 Offer a mix of familiar and less familiar visual formats to promote flexible thinking
• 💛 Laminate the worksheet and reuse with whiteboard markers for practice or play-based centres

Subitise & Match 1–5 Numeracy Assessment: Early Years provides an engaging and developmentally appropriate way to assess your students’ understanding of number quantity, visual number recognition and subitising strategies. It’s a valuable tool to support planning, goal setting and targeted early years instruction.