Addresses one of the more serious criticisms made concerning the Lacanian concept of the Real, that made by Francois Roustang, who accuses Lacan of intentionally blurring the two distinct registers of this concept. Wordsworth's poem, "We Are Seven," illustrates the Real as pure loss through its representation of family relations,…

Presents a historical overview and summary of research conducted on simple arithmetic in the past 20 years. Presents two seemingly different directions in current research, one on the role of working memory in mental arithmetic and one on the possible cognitive consequences of mathematics anxiety. Contains 108 references. (MKR)

Reviews research using diagrams, number sentences, and algorithms to help students learn to add and subtract; poses questions on the relationship of instruction to children's knowledge construction; and proposes a research agenda in this area. (86 references) (MKR)

Reviews the arguments for the value of practical number apparatus and examines the practical activities for which it is used to try to explain why the theoretical benefits do not seem to be translating into practice. (Author)

Daily newspapers can be used to teach mathematics skills in a variety of ways. Students can analyze sports scores and averages, practice using the index, assemble imaginary stock portfolios, find numbers in articles, and complete puzzles. (MDM)

Investigates numerical competence in five-month-old infants using a violation-of-expectation paradigm. Supports previous findings that young children possess not only the competence for limited numerical abstraction, but also the ability to carry out addition and subtraction operations. An alternative explanation, that infants' responses are based…

Hypothesizes that the incidence of process-oriented thinking increases with the syntactic complexity of the problem presentation. Presents data confirming students' arithmetic preferences in the form of left-to-right translation along with evidence to show the effects of the ordering of data presentation in the problem statements on the…

Presents mathematics questions to analyze what advertisements are saying mathematically. (ASK)

This study investigated whether specific academic deficits were associated with attention-deficit disorder subtypes (with or without hyperactivity) with 40 elementary students. Results support the hypothesis that inattention exerts a specific and deleterious effect on the acquisition of arithmetic-computation skills. Implications for ADHD…

Twenty-three elementary and middle school students with learning disabilities were taught 14 difficult-to-memorize multiplication facts with a combination of mnemonic and traditional instruction. Results indicated that mnemonic training enhanced learning and these benefits were retained over time. (Author/DB)

Investigates 10-year-old children's abilities to reason by analogy in solving addition and subtraction comparison problems involving unknown compare sets and unknown reference sets. Children responded in a consistent manner to the tasks involving the basic addition problems, indicating substantial relational knowledge of these but responded in an…

Shares a problem-solving activity in which the aim is to find out how fifth-grade students would approach a nontraditional problem in which several conditions had to be met. Asks teachers to consider student observations in their teaching. (ASK)

Examines the computational strategies of 10 young street vendors in Beirut by describing, comparing, and analyzing computational strategies used in solving three types of problems: (1) transactions in the workplace; (2) word problems; and (3) computation exercises in a school-like setting. Indicates that vendors' use of semantically-based mental…

Compares the approaches to teaching division in Britain and in Holland where different emphasis is placed on the development of mental and written methods. Describes how it is common for pupils in Britain to work from an early stage with pencil and paper rather than mentally whereas early emphasis is placed on mental strategies in Holland. (ASK)

Presents a study in which participants were trained on nine single-digit multiplication problems over three sessions. Transfer of practice was tested with nine different multiplication problems in the fourth session for half the participants. Interprets problem-size, transfer, and retention effects within a network-interference model of mental…