Aside from being fun to do, singing songs, saying poems and rhymes, and doing finger plays with children helps them develop early literacy skills. The 700 selections in this compilation of songs and rhymes will help children ages 3 to 6 build a strong foundation in skills and concepts such as listening; colors, shapes, and counting; vocabulary;…

In this study, we examined 139 prospective elementary teachers' solution processes to additive word problems for which the solution is 1 more or 1 less than the answer produced by the straightforward application of the addition or subtraction of the two given numbers. For each problem, five aspects of their solution processes were examined: (a)…

Interest in mathematics learning that focuses on understanding, mathematical reasoning, and meaning-making underscores the need to develop ways of analyzing classrooms that foster certain types of learning. The goal of this paper is to show that the constructs of social and sociomathematical norms, which grew out of taking a symbolic…

Summer schools are an integral part of the Key Stage 3 of England's National Literacy Strategy. They play an important role in giving students, who are still at Level 3 in the National Curriculum tests, a flying start to their secondary school career by making links between the Year 6 and Year 7 curriculum. Students are expected to achieve the…

A mathematically literate citizenry is essential to maintaining democracy and ensuring a competitive position in a global economy. Instruction, curriculum, and assessment related to the teaching and learning of mathematics must be such that all students are given the opportunity to learn high levels of mathematics and encouraged to succeed. This…

Presents the text of a message sent to Susan Gerofsky by Robert Thomas after reading her article on a linguistic and narrative view of word problems in mathematics education. Gerofsky's response is also included. (DDR)

Investigated order of quantity concept development on a range of quantity conservation tasks. Subjects were 15 adults and children having spastic cerebral palsy from birth and attending the same special school or day unit. Found a sequence of development similar to that in children without the handicap, and scalogram analysis supported similarity…

Reviews research and presents the results of a case study on the effects of subject knowledge and its place within the British National Curriculum for early childhood students. The importance of foundation subjects as a vehicle for the acquisition and development of basic skills in literacy and numeracy is a major finding of the research. (MDM)

Recommends that numeracy be better coordinated and integrated across the curriculum and that teachers examine the image of mathematics presented to children. Discusses the value of eliciting children's ideas about and experiences with numbers and measuring. (DDR)

Explains the Core Skills framework which emerged as part of the Higher Still Development Programme in Scotland at the same time as similar developments of Key Skills in the rest of the United Kingdom. Describes the unique aspects of the Scottish program. (WRM)

A home school project was adapted from Crews' picture book Ten Black Dots. Students in four first grade classes engaged in diverse numeracy encounters in child-family interactive math learning exercises using children's literature bags. The planned activities met the K-4 Curriculum and Evaluation Standards of the National Council of Teachers of…

Reviews educational trends in the United Kingdom concerning parents' involvement in their children's education, and examines families as a context for development. Lists functions parents perform for their children and explains several parenting styles. Discusses parents as educators in three particular areas: (1) numeracy and mathematics; (2)…

Studied number use in language by preschool children and their mothers during cooking experiences. Found that although children used a variety of number words, mothers made greater use of number words than did children. Strong relationship between reciprocal numeracy episodes (between mother and child) and child's number use suggests that adult…

Explores what an emphasis on reading as social practice can tell us about the nature of reading. The article maintains that what counts as a "proper" reading of the text is highly constrained by the classroom context and that classrooms should be discourse sites where specific ways of reading are required and particular regimes of…

Extended matching sets questions (EMSQs) are a form of multiple-choice question (MCQ) consisting of a stem (the question or scenario) with an extended number of possible answers. Although there is no consensus on their absolute format, for the purpose of this paper a multiple-choice question with ten or more alternative answers is considered to be…