In many Western countries the pressure exerted on immigrants to integrate has become intense in recent years. Efforts to preserve their ethnic identity through multicultural recognition has now been replaced by the requirements of active civic participation and assimilation. Of course integration is considered important not only for the immigrant…

Early measures of mathematics skill and development have focused on early numeracy skills like counting, number identification, and sequencing of numbers. This study attempted to expand early mathematics assessment. Six new measures of early mathematics skill competence were developed and evaluated. Four existing measures also were examined.…

The present study examined the technical adequacy of curriculum-based measures (CBMs) of early numeracy. Six 1-min early mathematics tasks were administered to 137 kindergarten and first-grade students, along with an omnibus test of early mathematics. The CBM measures included Count Out Loud, Quantity Discrimination, Number Identification, Missing…

We present the perspectives of teachers and others involved in the collaborative design of teaching and learning artifacts across three cases: (a) an independent group participating in lesson study; (b) teachers participating in professional development programs; and (c) a district initiative for producing numeracy tasks. Among the results we…

We conducted a survey covering 20% of villages with 200-1000 population in rural Guinea-Bissau. We interviewed household heads, care-givers of children, and their teachers and schools. We analysed results from 9,947 children, aged 7-17, tested for literacy and numeracy competency. Only 27% of children were able to add two single digits, and just…

In this case study of adult English as a Second Language (ESL) educators, the researcher facilitated a six-week professional development activity around the topic of early literacy instruction. The four participants in the study circle were all LESLLA (low-educated second language and literacy acquisition) teachers whose students are adult…

This paper describes part of research conducted with fifteen Numeracy Coaches as they carried out their work supporting teachers in Victorian government schools. There was great variation in the mathematical background of coaches, and this area of the research investigated the changing perception of professional learning priorities to support…

An assessment approach from Mathematics Recovery was used to document the number knowledge of 20 first-graders and 20 second-graders in an Indonesian school. Sixteen first-graders were at the advanced-counting-by-ones stage and fourteen second-graders were facile. As well, fifteen first-graders and eleven second-graders were at the level of an…

Student centred approaches to teaching and learning in mathematics is one of the reforms currently being advocated and implemented to improve mathematics outcomes for students from low socio-economic status (SES) backgrounds. The models, meanings and practices of student centred approaches explored in this paper reveal that a constructivist model…

In a number of Western nations, concern over literacy and numeracy standards has put huge political pressure on education systems to improve the situation. Here in New Zealand, the government has recently introduced literacy and numeracy standards designed to improve basic skills in these key fields of achievement. What is perhaps less evident is…

Sustainable improvement in student learning achievement in numeracy requires a deliberate focus on two complementary strands of educational endeavour: the practice of effective teaching of mathematics and the exercise of high level school leadership capabilities. In this article, the authors describe the context and findings from their research in…

This longitudinal study examined how children's early numeracy assessed in kindergarten predicts their mathematical performance in the first grade, after controlling for the effects of age, gender, and parents' education. The participants were 212 Finnish children (107 girls and 105 boys). At the time of the first assessment (kindergarten), the…

This article looks at literacy from social and critical perspectives in order to understand the literacy and numeracy practices of women in small savings groups in northern Mexico. In this case, women's literacy and numeracy practices were not only situated in a rural desert context but also oriented toward concrete action to address their…

The concept of "funds of knowledge" is critically reviewed, tracing a history of the term's changing use since its original conception by Velez-Ibanez and Greenberg in the late 1980s, and discussing its relevance in adult literacy and numeracy classrooms. An attempt is made to locate the concept within wider theoretical frameworks, and in…

Interpreting graphs found in various content areas is an important skill for students, especially in light of high-stakes testing. In addition, reading and understanding graphs is an important part of numeracy, or numeric literacy, a skill necessary for informed citizenry. This article explores the different categories of graphs, provides…