Place value is one of the 'big ideas' in number and plays a critical role in helping students develop their number sense, problem solving and computation skills. Yet, the elegant simplicity of our place value system belies the abstract nature of the construct. This paper presents data from 606 Year 3-6 students (ages 8-12) from two metropolitan…

In this paper we compare the early years mathematics curricula of Germany, South Africa, and Australia in relation to the place value concept. Place value is an important topic as it underpins much of the number work completed by learners in the early years of schooling. We found that there were differences between the three curricula that could…

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…

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…

Differentiating instruction can be difficult, however, when higher performing students yearn to be stretched and lower performing students benefit from scaffolded support. One way to meet these students' learning needs and everyone in-between is to embrace the notion of novel exploration in support of critical school mathematics concepts. Novelty…

It is frequently surprising to new teachers (and even those with experience) when they find that not only do some children need to recount the group they have just counted to be assured of the total but also that this need seems to be resistant to intervention. Although moving from "counting-all" to "count-on" is sometimes…

Advances in technology have seen a proliferation of touch-screen interfaces available to young children. These screens have changed the way in which young children engage with digital technology; with increased exposure and use, it raises debates about the suitability of integrating digital technology within early childhood settings. There are…

The use of enabling and extending prompts allows tasks to be both accessible and challenging within a classroom. This article provides an example of how to use enabling and extending prompts effectively when employing a challenging task in Year 2.

This paper reports on results of a targeted and extended (two school terms) program for building Grade 3 and Grade 4 students' facility with number facts and application for mental computation. As part of a larger project, this paper reports results from two schools. Results indicated strong gains in number fact recall and mental computation for…

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…

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.

This article outlines the author's efforts to build her knowledge of students' understandings of mathematics whilst catering for different abilities within a Year 1 classroom, using the freely available "Assessment for Common Misunderstandings tools." "The Assessment for Common Misunderstandings" materials have been…

Lorna Quinnell and Merrilyn Carter examine the use of symbols in teaching mathematics and outline the difficulties students experience in "reading symbols and abbreviations." We are sure teachers will appreciate the way the authors have examined the use of symbols and abbreviations in NAPLAN testing and organized them into five distinct…

Place value underpins much of what people do in number. In this article, the author describes some simple tasks that may be used to assess students' understanding of place value. This set of tasks, the Six Tasks of Place Value (SToPV), takes five minutes to administer and can give direct insight into a student's understanding of the number system…

Despite the emphasis that children should have a robust sense of number and a thorough understanding of fraction (National Mathematics Advisory Panel, 2008), many students continue to struggle with these concepts. Booker Diagnostic Assessment Framework (Booker, 2011) can inform decision about teaching that improves students' learning outcomes.…