We are pleased to bring you this follow-up to Mairéad Hourigan and Aisling Leavy's article [EJ1289314] that was published in issue 1 this year. In this contribution, they demonstrate that embedding mathematics within a rich context and learning sequence assists with the consolidation of student understanding and makes more effective use of teacher…

Fluency with basic number facts is vital for students' progress in mathematics. Not only does it contribute to students' facility with mental computation and algorithms, but an understanding of numbers and their properties builds a foundation for future mathematical work including algebra. There are many activities that can help students…

Number sense has been recognised as central to young children's development of mathematics for a number of decades. A student with a "good" sense of number normally has a thorough understanding of relationships among numbers and operations--being able flexibly to partition and combine numbers in convenient ways to allow appropriate…

The author cites research from students' misconceptions of decimal notation that indicates that many students treat decimals as another whole number to the right of the decimal point. This "whole number thinking" leads some students to believe, in the context of comparing decimals, that "longer is larger" (for example, 0.45 is…