This free math tutoring video will encourage you to forget finger counting! Finger Counting should be left behind (or, even better, not taught at all) after Kindergarten. Beginning at 1st grade level math (or adding and subtracting within 20) children should be taught mental math strategies in order to figure out answers. Counting is not figuring. Counting is chanting a memorized list. We want our children’s minds actively engaged in the mental manipulation of numbers so that they develop and solidify number sense within themselves.