This paper frames children's mathematics as mathematics. Specifically, it draws upon our knowledge of children's mathematics and applies it to understanding the prime number theorem. Elementary school arithmetic emphasizes two principal operations: addition and multiplication. Through their units coordination activity, children construct two…

Children's multiplicative thinking as the recognition of equal group structures and the enumeration of the composite units was the subject of this research. In this paper, we provide an overview of the Multiplication and Division Investigations project. The results were obtained from a small sample of Australian children (n = 21) in their first…

The authors have found that having students learn accessible standard algorithms by explaining them using mathematics drawings increases students' sense of place--value numbers and enables students to articulate their understanding of what is actually happening with the numbers and why. In this article, they will discuss three standard algorithms…

The aim in the current study is to examine the conceptualizations of zero in arithmetic operations among students with learning disabilities (LD) and no learning disabilities (N-LD). The similarities and differences in the understandings of students with LD and N-LD of zero in arithmetical operations will be discussed. The study is a multiple case…

Urban and rural children have different levels of performance in arithmetic processing. This study investigated whether such a residence difference can be explained by phonological processing. A total of 1,501 Chinese primary school students from urban and rural areas were recruited to complete nine cognitive tasks: two in arithmetic performance…

Background: In several countries, children's math skills have been declining at an alarming rate in recent years and decades, and one of the explanations for this alarming situation is that children have difficulties in establishing the relations between arithmetical operations. Aim: In order to address this question, our goal was to determine the…

Attitudes toward math (ATM) predict math achievement. Negative ATM are associated with avoidance of math content, while positive ATM are associated with exerting more effort on math tasks. Recent literature highlights the importance of considering interactions between ATM and math skill in examining relations to achievement. This study…

Whole-number arithmetic is a core content area of primary mathematics, which lays the foundation for children's later conceptual development. This paper focuses on teaching whole-number multiplication (WNM) to build a stepping stone for children's proportional reasoning. Our intention in writing this paper is to obtain a practice-based perspective…

In this study, we decomposed the broad practice of deciphering multiple solution strategies. We conducted interviews with 11 preservice elementary teachers, in which we asked teachers to decipher students' standard and nonstandard strategies to multiplication and division problems. We examined what teachers said and did--what we refer to as…

In this study, we decomposed the broad practice of deciphering multiple solution strategies. We conducted interviews with 11 preservice elementary teachers, in which we asked teachers to decipher students' standard and nonstandard strategies to multiplication and division problems. We examined what teachers said and did--what we refer to as…

Introducing the distributivity property of multiplication over addition is a well-known challenge in mathematics education, especially in primary school. As a contribution, this paper presents the results of a cycle of design research that focuses on the design, implementation and evaluation of a modelling activity in which 2nd-grade students are…

Students often show difficulties in understanding rational numbers. Often, these are related to the natural number bias, that is, the tendency to apply the properties of natural numbers to rational number tasks. Although this phenomenon has received a lot of research interest over the last two decades, research on the existence of qualitatively…

This document includes instructional tips on: (1) Building on students' informal understanding of sharing and proportionality to develop initial fraction concepts; (2) Helping students recognize that fractions are numbers that expand the number system beyond whole numbers, and using number lines to teach this and other fraction concepts; (3)…

Skills and understanding of operations with negative numbers, which are typically taught in middle school, are crucial aspects of numerical competence necessary for all subsequent mathematics. To more swiftly and coherently develop the field's understanding of how to foster this critical competence, we need shared measures that allow us to compare…

This research paper reports strategies used by Grade 6 learners in multiplying whole numbers in five selected primary schools in Kavango East and West regions. A total of 200 learners' mathematics exercise books were analysed in order to identify the commonly used strategies by learners in multiplying whole numbers. A total of ten teachers…