Approximately 93 percent of Americans indicate that they experience some level of math anxiety. Math anxiety is defined as negative emotions that interfere with the solving of mathematical problems. Studies have found that some students who perform poorly on math assessments actually have a full understanding of the concepts being tested; however,…

Not all children are made the same. Learning disabilities like dyslexia, dysgraphia or dyscalculia are either not understood or ignored in schools. As a result, the schoolchildren suffer for no fault of theirs and they lag behind in their course of learning. They may find it difficult to achieve the basic skills of learning such as reading,…

A widely recognized concern in elementary school mathematics education is that teachers' understanding of the mathematical curricular content generally appears quite fragmented, sparsely connected, and procedurally oriented. This pilot study applies methods of educational neuroscience to investigate and improve preservice teachers' learning and…

Examined the effects of intervention in the instruction of 12 male seventh-grade students for the purpose of developing number sense. Results indicate that after instruction students were more likely to use strategies to solve number magnitude, mental computation, and computational estimation problems that reflected number sense. (Contains 50…

Fifth-grade students (n=101) were studied to determine the effect of instruction on (1) the development of computational estimation strategies; (2) types of estimation errors made; and (3) estimation skills. Results indicate students adopt the estimation strategies taught and that introducing mathematical concepts through estimation increases…

This study investigated the fluency with which first-graders with strong, moderate, or weak mathematical abilities apply the decomposition-to-10 and tie strategy on almost-tie sums with bridge over 10. It also assessed children's memorized knowledge of additions up to 20. Children's strategies were analysed in terms of Lemaire and Siegler's model…

A semiotic perspective on mathematical activity provides a way of conceptualizing the teaching and learning of mathematics that transcends and encompasses both psychological perspectives focussing exclusively on mental structures and functions, and performance-focussed perspectives concerned only with student's behaviours. Instead it considers the…

The "Thinking Mathematics" approach to teaching is guided by two ideas: (1) that learning requires knowledge upon which new problems and situations are interpreted and (2) that mathematics skills are applied in context. This paper reports research that examined whether teaching mathematics students in high school remedial classes can be…

An editorial comment on the computer and the mathematics educator is included first. Then, abstracts and comments are presented for 11 articles. Studies included focus on mental addition, problem solving by sixth graders, mathematics anxiety, tutoring, direct instruction, a bilingual program, thinking strategies for multiplication basic facts,…

The development of an instructional model for teaching formal mathematical concepts (probability concepts) to disadvantaged high school students through computer programming and some results from a field test are described in this document. The instructional model takes into account both learner characteristics (cognitive, affective, and…

Promotes mathematics instruction that goes beyond computation and problem solving, attempting to make children the "posers of problems." Addresses differences in hemisphericity, processing, and learning styles, as well as maturation differences, sex differences, effects of stimulation, enriched environments, emotion, and the control of attention.…

An editorial and abstracts for 12 research reports are contained in this issue. The editorial by Robert E. Reys focuses on the dangers of publishing poor research. The abstracts, each with a critique, concern research on a game for logical reasoning, wait-time and sex differences, vocabulary instruction on ratio and proportion, male-female…

Does conceptually oriented instruction jeopardize students' computational competence? If it does, then why are so many reform efforts continuing to emphasize the importance of teaching for conceptual understanding? If it does not, then why are the majority of teachers at all grade levels continuing to teach for computational competence without…