This article reflects critically on the guidance offered to South African teachers in two canonical texts: the Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statements (CAPS) and Mathematics teaching and learning framework for South Africa: Teaching mathematics for understanding (TMU). I make explicit my philosophical orientation, and how 'teaching mathematics…

Traditionally, the first mathematical task for primary grade students to master is addition. Mastering addition facts is truly a positive experience. Then one turns to subtraction. After mastering addition facts, many students think that subtraction facts are a whole new set of facts to learn that have nothing to do with addition facts. They do…

Kinesthetic learning, one of the VAK learning styles, is now also being adapted by different gaming consoles and platforms. This paper presents Salapiggy, a two-part kinesthetic educational Sifteo game that has both a tutorial on money and sorting game. It is localized in the Philippines and uses Filipino as the User Interface Language and the…

Discusses classroom practices that promote the understanding of number concepts in the primary grades. (Author/NB)

Addition strategies used by 36 kindergarten children were examined. Children were given written stimuli (such as "2+5" and "3+7") during two sessions taking place a week apart. Results indicated that once children came to rely on mental addition strategies, they often quickly invented more economical procedures to compute sums. Also confirmed was…

Three models have been proposed to account for the relationship between the principle of commutativity and the development of more economical addition strategies, which disregard addend order. In the first and second models, it has been proposed that either discovery or assumption of commutativity is a necessary condition for the invention of…

Examined the relationship between counting knowledge and computational skills for 13 mathematically disabled (MD) first graders who showed a delay in acquiring mathematical skills and 24 nondisabled first graders. MD children's immature counting knowledge and poor skills at detecting counting errors underlay their poor computational skills on an…

Two studies involving 110 and 91 children aged 5 to 7 years show that children's knowledge of counting and addition facilitated their acquisition of a concept not taught in school, that every number has a natural successor (Successor Principle). Even the oldest children could not rank order correctly numbers that contained fractional notations.…

This study: (1) documented the spontaneous derived facts strategies (DGSs) that second-grade children (N=23) used; (2) investigated how training in use of DFSs influenced the solution strategies children used to solve addition and subtraction problems; and (3) examined the role of DFSs in the transition to recall of number facts. (JN)

The purpose of this study was to ascertain whether children in grade 3 who differ in cognitive processing capacity add and subtract differently. The researchers drew upon information from three sources: individual results from a battery of 14 tests, an objective-referenced achievement test measuring a variety of arithmetic skills related to…

This paper discusses an approach to the study of algorithms which values students' construction of nonstandard algorithms but also emphasizes the essential roles of the teacher and instructional activities in supporting the development of students' numerical reasoning. Episodes are presented from a 3rd grade classroom in which a 9-week teaching…

The author argues that children not only can but should create their own computational algorithms and that the teacher's role is "merely" to help. How children in grades K-3 add and subtract is the focus of this article. Grouping, directionality, and exchange are highlighted. (MNS)

Discusses developmentally appropriate activities for teaching counting skills for kindergarten and early first-grade programs. Describes four activities: (1) counting on; (2) counting back; (3) auditory patterning; and (4) visual patterning based on the 10-frame. (YP)

Provides the instructions to build a homemade calculator that can be used as a reinforcement device to assist primary students in memorizing their addition facts. (MDH)

Three factors associated with arithmetical processes (sequence skills, arithmetical strategies, and information processing capacity) were measured in individual interviews with 35 first-grade pupils, aged 7.6 to 8.6, in one Finnish school. Mathematics achievement was determined from information supplied by teachers. Attitudes were assessed twice,…