Good morning Debbie,
You are talking about the 'Ascend custom animation, not a slide transition.
Select the textbox (not the text within the box) with the points to be
animated and right click and select Custom animation.
This will bring up the custom animation task pane (in PowerPoint 2002, 2003
and 2007). In this task pane the text box will be highlighted and you
should select Add Effect, select 'Entrance' and select 'More effects at the
bottom of the list.
Then locate the Ascend animation. After selecting the animation, click on
the text box in the task pane and select the pulldown. All of the lines
listed should have a number next to them. This is correct .
If they do not show a number before each line, select the line and then
change the 'Start' to 'On click'.
Post back if anything here isn't clear or I can better explain anything.
Sorry about the delay in getting back to you,
Bill Dilworth