Early number sense not algebra readiness plays role in understanding higher level mathematics

There is new research that confirms what teachers have always known, and that is that number sense is more important than algebra readiness in determining a students understanding algebra and higher level mathematics. We know a lot about how babies learn to talk, and how youngsters learn to read. Now scientists are unraveling the earliest building blocks of mathematics. What children know about numbers as they begin first grade plays a huge role in how well they do in everyday calculations later on.

The findings have specialist developing steps that parents might take to spur math abilities, just like they do to try to raise a good reader.

This is not about trying to improve the nation's math scores and attract children to become scientist and engineers. It is far more basic.

Consider: How rapidly can you calculate a tip? Do you know the fractions to double a recipe? Know many quarters and dimes the cashier should hand back to you as change?

Approximately one in five adults in the United States lacks the mathematical competence expected of a middle-schooler, meaning they have difficultly with those ordinary tasks and are not qualified for many of today's jobs.

"It's not just, can you do well in school? It's how well can you do in your life," says Dr. Kathy Mann Koepke of the National Institutes of Health, which is funding most of the research into math cognition. "We are in the midst of math all the time."

A new study shows trouble can begin early. University of Missouri researchers tested 180 seventh-graders. Those who lagged behind their peers in a test of core math skills needed to function as adults were the same children who had the least number sense or fluency when they started first-grade.

"The gap they started with, they don't close it," says Dr. David Geary, a cognitive psychologist who  leads the study that is tracking children from kindergarten to high school in the Columbia, MO, school system. "They're not catching up" to the kids who started ahead.

If the first-grade sounds too young to predicting mathematical ability, well, no one expects tots to be writing sums or performing other arithmetic operations . However this number sense, or what Geary more precisely terms "number systems knowledge," turns out to be a fundamental skill.

The Common Core Standards being adopted by most school in the nation are design to focus on the fundamentals. And number sense is the the fundamental, the foundation for all other strands of mathematics.   I am writing an essay about the standards that I will post soon.

There are a lot of sites that have recommendations for activities to develop number sense. One that I recommend is, Helping Your Child Learn Math.

Remember that encouraging your child to ask questions and explore the world will provide you with many teachable moments.

Until next week,
Debra