Four hundred and three 3rd- and 5th-grade Chinese students took the Multiplication Estimation Test or participated in the interview on it, designed to assess their computational estimation performance on whole-number multiplication. Students perform better when tasks are presented visually than orally. Third graders tend to use rounding based…

Presented is a historical treatment of computational devices that use counters on a checkerboard. The discussion includes works of John Napier, Walter Minto, and Nicholas Saunderson. (MP)

Examines 250 sixth-grade students' understanding of arithmetic average by assessing their understanding of the computational algorithm. Results indicate that the majority of the students knew the "add-them-all-up-and-divide" averaging algorithm, but only half of the students were able to correctly apply the algorithm to solve a…

The author presents two activities for practice with numbers and calculation. The first is an arithmetic adaptation of the familiar game of "Concentration" while the second is an unusual representation of addition, subtraction, and some properties of negative numbers. (Author/MN)

An overview is provided of the current literature on mathematical learning of children with a learning disability. Mathematics for the population viewed is seen to mean mainly arithmetic. It is felt more research is clearly needed on teaching arithmetic to children with a learning disability. (MP)

Case studies investigating the effectiveness of procedures undertaken to develop number sense and basic computational skills in (n=12) learning disabled students in a K-1 classroom found that all students were successful in recognizing and matching the numbers 0 through 5 and adding sums to 5. (13 references) (Author/MKR)

Discusses procedures used throughout history to solve fractional and decimal divisor problems. Early rules and definitions, approaches in mathematics and methods books, "new math" approaches, research findings, and recent textbook procedures are included. Concludes by presenting nine recommendations for teaching the operation. (DH)

Discusses three methods to teach the order of operations to middle school students: (1) asking students to fill in operations in a statement to obtain a given answer; (2) using mnemonics to remember operation order; and (3) having students discover the logic system used by their calculators. (MDH)

Presents a study that analyzed errors made by randomly chosen fourth grade students (25 of 57) while using the division algorithm and investigated the effect of remediation on identified systematic errors. Results affirm that error pattern diagnosis and directed remediation lead to new learning and long-term retention. (MDH)