Presents two mathematics activities using the theme of school lunch menus and healthful eating habits to reinforce making predictions using computational skills. Includes reproducible student worksheets. (MKR)

Sixty-four adults were tested on simple addition and multiplication problems presented in Arabic digit or English number-word format. Overall, response times and error rates were much higher with the word format, but more important, presentation format interacted with arithmetic operation and problem size. (DR)

Children aged four through six years were given identical addition and subtraction calculations presented in three problem-type formats: nonverbal problems, story problems, and number-fact problems. Results suggest that children's earliest calculation ability is based on experiences combining and separating sets of objects. Contains 34 references.…

Compared children's cognitive abilities at four years and their prenatal amniotic fluid testosterone levels. For girls, prenatal testosterone levels were related in a curvilinear manner to language comprehension and classification abilities, and inversely related to counting and knowledge of number facts. For boys, no relationships were found. (BC)

Issues related to designing educational indicators with comparisons among similar places are presented, using examples from indicators of school and district performance used by different states. As an illustration, alternative strategies are applied to calculate indicators of state high school graduation rates. (SLD)

Based on Piaget's theory that children acquire number concepts by constructing them from within, the authors conclude that teaching algorithms harms mathematics learning. A better approach is allowing them to construct their own logico-mathematical knowledge and invent their own efficient procedures. (JOW)

Presents a study in which a group of 25 undergraduate students was given seven whole- or decimal-number estimations and asked to determine the exact answer using a calculator programmed to give incorrect answers. Points out subjects' lack of confidence in their estimation skills as well as a reluctance to question calculator-produced results.…

Describes the basic and exceptional calculation abilities of a calculating prodigy whose performances were investigated in single- and multi-digit number multiplication, numerical comparison, raising of powers, and short-term memory tasks. Shows how his highly efficient long-term memory storage and retrieval processes, knowledge of calculation…

Presents an activity in which attribute blocks help middle school students understand the fundamental counting principle and the multiplication rule. Demonstrates how these materials can aid students in building a conceptual understanding of multiplication and the counting principle. (ASK)

Discusses overall mental computation achievement and limits discussion to strategies middle school students used when computing with whole numbers, decimals, and fractions. Suggests that the development of conceptual knowledge of numbers is an important prerequisite for the understanding of mental computation procedures. (Contains 31 references.)…

Investigates possibilities for and manifestations of collaborative work with pairs of kindergarten students as they worked on tasks designed to promote early number development. Students generated four strategies, and three themes emerged from the analysis of the cooperative solutions. Contains 34 references. (Author/ASK)

Two experiments used phoneme counting tasks to investigate the foundations of phonemic awareness. Found that first graders and college students had some ability to distinguish between monophthongs (as in "he") and diphthongs (as in "how"), and they tended to count fewer "sounds" for syllables ending with the more…

Presents a case study with an at-risk second grade student on counting and numbers. Discusses counting stages that the student went through. (ASK)

Examined effect of maternal support on the development of counting and cardinality in young children at 32, 38, and 44 months of age. At the two earlier times, children were more successful at counting than determining cardinal relationships in both supported and unsupported contexts. Findings suggest that both social and cognitive biases contain…

This study examined the arithmetic computation performance of 229 normally achieving students (ages 9 to 14) and 101 students with learning disabilities. Results found that the students with learning disabilities performed at lower levels and that their progress from one age to another was extremely limited. (Author/CR)