3. Maths Development Flashcards
(40 cards)
Is maths attainment in the UK increasing or decreasing?
decreasing
- by 13 points since the 2018 Pisa
Why is maths important?
- we use maths in our everyday life (calculate discounts etc)
- scientific and technological innovation are at the forefront of economic climate
In what order do maths skills develop?
- non-symbolic numbers
- count list
- symbolic numbers
- arithmetic
- rational numbers
- algebra
What is the innate number sense?
- humans are born with the ability to reason mathematically
- approximate number system: our minds come equipped with a rich and flexible sense of number
What did Starkey and Cooper find in terms of the innate number sense?
- infants dishabituated to the display that changed into contour length
- infants did not dishabituate to the display that changed in number
- infants base their discriminations on size difference, not on number
What is habituation?
- losing interest
What did Wynn find in terms of infants being able to add and subtract?
- infants looked longer at wrong outcomes (recognised it was incorrect)
- 5 month old infants therefore can calculate the results of simple arithmetical operations on small number of items
What did Wakeley eta al find in opposition to Wynn in infants being able to add and subtract?
- babies did not look longer at the incorrect than the correct outcomes
- failure to replicate across all conditions
What are symbolic numbers?
- abstract and exact representations of numerosity (number words/arabic digits)
What is rote counting?
- reciting the number words in sequence
What do children learn before they understand the numerical meaning of number words and arabic numerals?
- count sequence by rote
What counting principles are needed for children to count?
- one-to-one principle
- stable order principle
- abstraction principle
- order irrelevance principle
- cardinality principle
What is the one-to-one principle?
- each object can only be counted at once
- each number word has to be paired with only one object
- each object can be only paired with one number word
- all objects are paired with a number word
What is the stable order principle?
- number words are recited in a fixed order
- lowest to highest and this won’t change
What is the abstraction principle?
- an array or collection of sets can be counted
- we count the collection of sets the same way regardless of their characteristics
What is the order irrelevance principle?
- the order in which objects are counted does not matter
- each order leads to the same result
What is the cardinality principle?
- the last number in the count sequence also describes how many objects there are in the total set
- not only describes the order of the object but also the quantity of the whole set
What does the Give-N-Task show about the cardinality principle?
children progress through ‘knower levels’
- grabbers: take a handful with no conceptual knowledge
- pre-number-knowers: get the same number no matter what they’re asked for
- subset-knowers (one-knower, two-knower, three-knower, four-knower): for some numbers they are reliable
- cardinal principle knower
At what age do children typically become a CP knower?
- around 3-4yrs
- large inter-individual variation
What is the arabic digit acquisition correlated with?
- onset of schooling
- age varies across countries
What is ordinality?
- the relation between items in a sequence
When does ordinality emerge in comparison to cardinality?
- later than cardinality
What do ordinality tasks involve?
- assess ordinality with either a number ordering task or an order judgment task
- performance of the two tasks are highly correlated as they tap into the same cognitive skill
- number ordering: more appropriate for younger children
Are early maths skills important?
- 7 year span in ability within a single primary classroom
- numerous studies have shown that children who enter kindergarten with poor numeracy skills do not catch up
- therefore early skills are important
