Number Sense and Initial Math Skills

Number Sense and Initial Math Skills

To achieve in mathematics, students must acquire a good sense of numbers early in their academic career. Without it, students may suffer in math for a long time. Geary, Hoard, and Hamson (1999) found that students with mathematics-based disabilities show difficulties with counting knowledge, number naming and writing, and memory retrieval as compared to their nondisabled peers as early as the first grade. Geary and his colleagues conjectured that these early difficulties in basic math would affect their future mathematics learning. The National Mathematics Advisory Panel (NMAP) (2008) argues that students must understand whole numbers and the operations with these whole numbers by Grade 4. This early sense of mathematics is called number sense ...