This article describes an exploration activity involving Mayan numerals, which can be adapted by teachers at various levels to help students better understand the concept of place value and appreciate contributions to mathematics made by an indigenous Central American culture.

This module provides teachers with practical tools to improve the quality of teaching and learning activities and enable learners to achieve their objectives in literacy, language and numeracy. Unit 1 explores approaches that are particularly appropriate to adult learners, developing thinking skills and involving them in decision making and…

New times demand new interpretations of what it means to be numerate in a global world. Policy and curriculum documents uphold notions of capable young learners, actively engaged in investigative learning processes that will carry them on to competent and confident participation in the social and economic world of tomorrow. However, as the author…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to review evidence related to the factors that influence people's understanding of health information and how miscommunication of health information can jeopardize people's health. Design/methodology/approach: A literature review was conducted of English language articles, cited in major literature databases…

Forty-five children with mathematics learning disabilities, with and without comorbid reading disabilities, were compared to 45 normally achieving peers in tasks assessing basic numerical skills. Children with mathematics disabilities were only impaired when comparing Arabic digits (i.e., symbolic number magnitude) but not when comparing…

"The Electric Company" ("TEC") television show won the hearts of children because it made learning fun. Thirty years later, the iconic show has returned with the goal of not only teaching literacy, but also numeracy (the ability to work with and understand numbers) and mathematics vocabulary in a fun, entertaining, and engaging…

The theme of the 38th meeting of the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education (PME 38) and the 36th meeting of the North American Chapter of the Psychology of Mathematics Education (PME-NA 36) was "Mathematics Education at the Edge." Academically, the theme provides opportunities to highlight and examine…

A study examined 60 adult students' informal knowledge of percent and its relationship to their formal computational skills. The students studying in adult education programs were interviewed to ascertain the following: (1) their ideas of the meanings of three benchmark percentages--100, 50, and 25 percent--as they appear in advertising and media…

This report discusses the place of numeracy in adult education, examines conceptions of what numeracy and numeracy provision might include, and explores links between literacy and numeracy provision. Section A takes a critical look at how much attention is being paid to mathematics education in adult education/adult literacy programs and addresses…

Whether it is standardized test data, student journals, or informal classroom question and answer, assessments provide invaluable, ongoing diagnostic information for making key instructional decisions. In this engaging and comprehensive resource, the authors demonstrate practical ways for embedding test preparation into teaching by integrating…

This report describes the processes and findings of a north east Learning and Skills Development Agency (LSDA) research project. This was a collaborative research study, which followed from a similar, much larger project in the north west, which looked into how learners view their own progress and achievement in the acquisition of literacy and…

This paper reports some of the results of the "Raising Standards in Numeracy" project which was funded by the Welsh Assembly during 1999-2000. Schools in which pupils achieved standards significantly higher than would have been expected from their prior attainment were identified as using value-added analyses in order to explore factors…

According to interviews with 26 human resource managers, 78 supervisors, and 226 workers in New Zealand, managers and supervisors acknowledge significant changes in the literacy demands of work and concern with the capacity to train. Employees reported less difficulty with literacy tasks than supervisors/managers believed. Examination of workplace…

Compares textbooks in England with those in Switzerland and Germany termed "continental" in order to assess the possibility that better textbooks might raise English schooling performance in mathematics. Differences include introducing calculators in primary school, which is regarded as risky by Continental educators, and the precedence of mental…

Employment experiences were compared for British adults with good/average literacy and numeracy skills and those with good/average literacy and very low numeracy. Even with good literacy skills, poor numeracy reduced employment and training opportunities and promotion prospects. (SK)