Tally Charts, Picture Graphs & Bar Graphs
Lessons in this chapter
About Tally Charts, Picture Graphs & Bar Graphs
Play with Data is a 1st grader’s introduction to statistics, and the emphasis is on interpreting rather than drawing.
Read and Interpret Tally Charts starts with the simplest record of a count. The grouping in fives, four strokes with a fifth across them, is the first time kids see data deliberately organized to be counted quickly, and it uses the skip counting they already have.
Read and Interpret Picture Graphs adds the idea that one symbol can stand for more than one thing. A picture graph where each apple means two apples is where kids first meet a key, and misreading the key is the mistake that lasts longest.
Read and Interpret Bar Graphs then moves to a scaled axis, where height rather than count carries the information. The questions matter more than the format: which has most, how many more does one have than another, how many altogether. That last pair are addition and subtraction wearing a different hat.
Three lessons, each a worksheet in the page: Read and Interpret Tally Charts, Read and Interpret Picture Graphs and Read and Interpret Bar Graphs. The questions matter more than the chart, so most of them are math problems in disguise, asking how many more one bar has than another or how many there are altogether. All three are free and scored as you go.
Frequently asked questions
Three lessons, one per format. Read and Interpret Tally Charts comes first, since tally marks grouped in fives are the simplest record of a count, then picture graphs with a key, then bar graphs with a scaled axis. All of it is reading rather than drawing, and it sits in the Common Core's first grade Measurement and Data domain (1.MD).
Reading and interpreting three formats, tally charts, picture graphs and bar graphs, and answering comparison and total questions from each.
So a long count can be read quickly by skip counting in fives instead of counting every stroke. It is a practical use of the skip counting from earlier in the year.
A note saying what one symbol stands for. If each apple means two apples, a row of four apples means eight, and missing the key is the most common error at this age.
Which category has most or least, how many more one has than another, and how many there are altogether. The last two are subtraction and addition in disguise.
The focus here is reading and interpreting. Constructing graphs is picked up in 2nd grade's Data Detective.