What is on this worksheet
Each row on this sheet counts by a fixed step, and every second or third number has been taken out and replaced with a box. That is the part that matters. A child who can chant two, four, six, eight from the start often stalls when asked what comes after fourteen, because chanting is memory and filling a gap is arithmetic. Every row starts from a different number rather than always from the step itself, so counting by fives might begin at ten or fifteen and the pattern still has to be worked out rather than recalled.
How to use it
Print the sheet and fill in each empty box so the row keeps counting by the number named at the start of it. Press Show answers on screen if you want to check a row before printing.
Three ways to practice
Read the row aloud first
Before writing anything, have your child read the whole row including the empty boxes as a pause. Hearing the rhythm of the sequence often supplies the missing number before any counting happens.
Work backwards from the end
The last box in each row is at the end, with nothing after it to check against. Filling it by counting back from a known number is a different skill from counting forward and worth practicing on its own.
Connect fives to the clock
The rows counting by five are the same numbers as the minutes on a clock face. Pointing at a real clock while reading one of those rows joins two things a child is learning separately.
A tip worth knowing
Say the sequence out loud as it is written. Skip counting is learned by ear before it is learned on paper, which is why children chant it long before they can fill in a gap in the middle of a row.
Printing this sheet
Frequently asked questions
Why does skip counting matter?
It is the bridge to multiplication. Counting by fives is the five times table before anyone calls it that, so a child fluent in skip counting meets the tables already knowing most of the answers.
Should my child count on their fingers?
Yes, at first. Counting up two or five on fingers to find the next number is exactly how the pattern gets learned. Fluency comes from repetition, not from taking the fingers away early.
What comes after this sheet?
The skip counting by 3s to 9s worksheet uses the same layout with the harder steps, which are the ones that do not have an easy rhythm to fall back on.