The decomposition of numbers when solving subtraction tasks is regarded as more powerful than counting-based strategies. Still, many students fail to solve subtraction tasks despite using decomposition. To shed light upon this issue, we take a variation theoretical perspective (Marton, 2015) seeing learning as a function of discerning critical…

Children's early accuracy on place value (PV) tasks longitudinally predicts their later multidigit calculation skills. However, another window into children's emerging base-ten concepts is the pattern of errors -- "smart errors" -- they exhibit on these measures. Past research has speculated that these smart errors -- similar to invented…

The purpose of this mixed methods study was to investigate the implementation of a researcher-created numberless word problem instructional unit designed to introduce second-grade students to word problems in the semantic category of "compare with the word more, smaller unknown." The 10-day instructional unit incorporated three elements:…

The study focuses on the effect of the lexical-syntactic structure on the patterns of errors by Arab first graders in tasks involving reading two-digit number and writing two-digit numbers to dictation. Children made few change or omission errors, indicating that they had little problem with the lexical aspects of the counting system. However,…

Research Findings: The aim of this study was to investigate U.S. preschool teachers' math teaching knowledge in a specific content domain: counting and numbers. One hundred in-service and pre-service teachers participated in the study; they completed a questionnaire that is composed of learning scenarios and scenario-based math teaching questions.…

The use of different registers to represent mathematical concepts enhances understanding. For example, rational numbers can assume pictorial, symbolic and natural language representations and this kind of change improves learning. Based on these assumptions, a teaching experiment for the learning of rational numbers by 2nd grade students was…

Interventions to support children with mathematical learning difficulties typically address deficits in domain-specific knowledge. However, not all students benefit from these instructional programs. In this case, some authors suggest an even more intensive instructional program combined with other factors assumed to be relevant for learning.…

The aim of the study is to investigate the errors that first grade students have made in their writing of vertical numbers which have just been applied by removing cursive writing. Considering the aim of the study, vertical number writing styles of the first-grade students in primary school were analyzed. The sample of the study consists of 116…

Numerical estimation has been used to study how children mentally represent numbers for many years (e.g., Siegler & Opfer, 2003). However, these studies have always presented children with positive numbers and positive number lines. Children's mental representation of negative numbers has never been addressed. The present study tested children…

The current study examined the development of two effects that have been found in single-digit multiplication errors: relatedness and distance. Typically achieving (TA) second, fourth, and sixth graders and adults, and sixth and eighth graders with a mathematics learning disability (MLD) performed a verification task. Relatedness was defined by a…

Introduction: In the present study we used a metaphorical representation in order to stimulate the numerical competences of six-year-olds. It was expected that when properties of physical action are used for mathematical thinking or when abstract mathematical thinking is grounded in sensorimotor processes, learning gains should be more pronounced…