Numbers That Say What They Are

Not numbers to match to pictures of apples. The numeral 16 is a ten and a six in that order, and Spanish says it in that order — dieciseis, ten-six — while English says sixteen, six-ten, backwards. That is why children write 61 for sixteen. One language tells you what its numbers are made of and the other makes you remember, and a child who has just met place value can see it in one page.