Teaching and Learning Early Number

* Is it time to question the traditional approach to the teaching of early number?

* What does research tell us about how young children acquire number concepts?

* What can teachers do to facilitate the development of number understanding?

This book presents an accessible guide to current research into the teaching and learning of early number concepts. The beliefs and number understanding of nursery and reception children are examined, and the book provides a detailed account of the role of counting in the acquisition of number understanding and in the development of derived fact strategies for addition, subtraction and multiplication. The 'emergent mathematics' movement is analysed and the place of written number work is covered. The book argues for the bridging of the gap between mental and written algorithms, and suggests ways in which this may be achieved. Practical activities are described to help teachers develop various aspects of number understanding.

Ian Thompson taught in schools for nineteen years before taking up a post in Higher Education. He currently lectures in Mathematics Education at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne. Observations of his own young children struggling to make sense of number concepts provided the stimulus for his research into children's idiosyncratic mental calculation strategies. This research later developed into a consideration of personal written algorithms. He feels that it is important that research findings are translated into a form accessible to busy teachers, and to this end publishes frequently in Child Education and the TES. He is a member of the Advisory Group for the National Numeracy Project.