Place value is a foundational competency for primary school mathematics and for this reason we have sought to investigate what the recent and current academic conversations are around this important concept. In this paper we present a survey of literature presented in the Australasian, European and Southern African contexts through a review of…

In Asia, some children are taught a calculation technique known as the 'mental abacus'. Previous research indicated that mental abacus experts can perform extraordinary feats of mental arithmetic, but it disagrees as to whether the technique improves working memory. The present study extended and clarified these findings by contrasting performance…

We are pleased to bring you this follow-up to Mairéad Hourigan and Aisling Leavy's article [EJ1289314] that was published in issue 1 this year. In this contribution, they demonstrate that embedding mathematics within a rich context and learning sequence assists with the consolidation of student understanding and makes more effective use of teacher…

A study was conducted to explore the beliefs and practices of 49 New South Wales (NSW) primary school teachers regarding their beliefs and practices concerning the use of concrete materials in the learning and teaching of Number and Algebra. This paper reports on elements of the study regarding why and how teachers use concrete materials. Not only…

Using both child-guided and adult-guided learning, Intentional Teaching in the early years can be a powerful tool for enhancing young children's numeracy skills. As Epstein (2009) notes, this can include providing "opportunities for children to represent things by drawing, building and moving" (p. 47). This paper investigates how…

This research was designed to investigate the conceptualisations and thinking strategies Indigenous Australian students use in counting tasks. Eighteen Aboriginal students, in years 1 to 11 at a remote community school, were interviewed using standard counting tasks and a "counting" task that involved fetching "maku" (witchetty…

As an alternative to looking solely at linear functions, a three-lesson learning progression developed for Year 6 students that incorporates triangular numbers to develop children's algebraic thinking is described and evaluated.

In this article, Lorraine Jacob and Joanne Mulligan discuss how arrays can be used to promote students' early learning in relation to multiplication and division. They provide examples of activities that can be used from Foundation to Year 5.

As part of individual interviews incorporating whole number and rational number tasks, 323 grade 6 children in Victoria, Australia were asked to nominate the larger of two fractions for eight pairs, giving reasons for their choice. All tasks were expected to be undertaken mentally. The relative difficulty of the pairs was found to be close to that…

Dot enumeration (DE) and number comparison (NC) abilities are considered markers of core number competence. Differences in DE/NC reaction time (RT) signatures are thought to distinguish between typical and atypical number development. Whether a child's DE and NC signatures change or remain stable over time, relative to other developmental…

The name of Zoltan P. Dienes (1916- ) stands with those of Jean Piaget, Jerome Bruner, Edward Begle, and Robert Davis as a legendary figure whose work left a lasting impression on the field of mathematics education. Dienes' name is synonymous with the multibase blocks that he invented for the teaching of place value. Among numerous other things,…

This document is a collection of over 200 classroom-ready activities which cover the five strands--Number, Space, Measurement, Chance and Data, and Problem Solving--outlined in Mathematics: A Curriculum Profile for Australian Schools. Each activity is a separate photocopy master, the front for the students to use and the back an assessment page…

These three pamphlets by the Department of Education in Victoria, Australia, provide an overview of the elementary mathematics curriculum which is described in greater detail in SE 012 723 to 729. The aims and philosophy, and the content and structure of the course are outlined, and methods of classroom organization to allow for individual…

Literature at national and international levels argues the importance of including mental computation in a mathematics curriculum that promotes number sense. However, mental computation does not feature in importance in the current Queensland mathematics syllabus documents. Hopefully, with the writing of a new mathematics syllabus, mental…

Estimation is an important skill for everyday living. Good estimators usually have a sound knowledge of basic facts, understand place value and use a variety of strategies to make their estimates. This paper describes an activity which is designed to provide students with opportunities to practice their rounding strategies with addition and…