Explains how the Open Training and Education Network in New South Wales (Australia) has addressed the issue of designing learning materials for learners in vocational and pre-vocational areas with physical, intellectual, vision, hearing, psychological, or neurological disabilities and learning difficulties, such as low literacy and numeracy…

Discusses a problem that appeared in the September, 1999 issue of this journal and presents solutions from students in grades 2-6. The question involved using colored cubes rearranged to make different stacked towers. (KHR)

Describes how Thales, one of the Seven Sages of ancient times, used shadows and similar triangles to measure the heights of the pyramids. Includes activities on surveying. (YDS)

Describes an activity in which students demonstrate through a variety of creative mathematical analogies just how big Bill Gates's fortune is. (YDS)

Uses advertisements to develop an understanding of very small numbers. (YDS)

Defines number sense and gives suggestions and activities for teachers to use in helping students develop number sense, including using process questions, using writing assignments, encouraging invented methods, using appropriate calculation tools, helping students establish benchmarks, and promoting internal questioning. (MKR)

Cautions that Year 3 and Year 5 Literacy Benchmarks, which set minimum literacy and numeracy standards for all Australian students, can measure but cannot transform student outcomes. Calls upon English professionals to put forth constructive suggestions for effective teaching methods that will enable students to reach the required goals. (NH)

Pupils progress through a relatively small number of key stages called growth points in numeracy learning. Identifies growth points in developing numeracy and suggests that better support can be offered to children when teachers are aware of the growth points. (ASK)

Describes new computer software packages that expand learning opportunities for students with varied disabilities: Meet the Math Wiz, Cornerstones Literacy Project, the KidTools Support System, Transitional Mathematics program, Nemeth Code Tutorial Project, and Project PRIDE. CD programs for the hearing-impaired include "Rosie's Walk,"…

This study compared 6- to 7-year-olds' knowledge of numerical fractions prior to school instruction in Croatia, Korea, and United States. Results suggested that the Korean vocabulary of fractions may influence the meaning children ascribe to numerical fractions and that this results in children being able to associated numerical fractions with…

Contexts are currently enjoying much prominence in school mathematics. Generally, the contextual issues and situations learners are exposed to and deal with in Mathematical Literacy are, with good reason, determined by curriculum, learning resource and test designers. This article reports on a study that investigated contexts that learners would…

This article explores how differences in problem representations change both the performance and underlying cognitive processes of beginning algebra students engaged in quantitative reasoning. Contrary to beliefs held by practitioners and researchers in mathematics education, students were more successful solving simple algebra story problems than…

The introduction of the National Literacy and Numeracy strategies in U.K. schools is discussed in the light of Howard Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences. Although the core curriculum is evidently important, it is argued that the introduction of the national strategies has created a possible over-emphasis in these subjects at the expense of…

The purpose of this paper is to describe the rationale, design, objectives, and methods underlying a liberal arts mathematics course that has been taught at the University of Colorado at Denver since 1992. The course is well aligned with recent recommendations for introducing quantitative literacy into the undergraduate curriculum. Surveys…

In this paper I argue that children have a right to basic numeracy and that studies of adult numeracy suggest that this right is being denied to many in British schools. Because of the way that maths education discourses are structured, we do not have a separately defined discourse around numeracy teaching, and this has implications for young…