Dec 9: Chapters 1 and 2

Developing Number Sense/Learning to Calculate

Our language is a barrier to how we learn numbers.
"Our ability to approximate numerical quantities may be embedded in our genes, but dealing with exact symbolic calculation can be an error-prone ordeal." (pg. 35)

Memorizing facts is not intuitive.

We are born with a built in number sense, genetically pre-disposed.

Survival Skill(counting number of predators)

English words make learning arithmetic harder.

The further apart numbers get the longer it takes to add them mentally.

On the mental number line, the numbers get closer together the larger they get.(See diagram pg 23)

The region of the brain we use for counting includes the same part that controls our fingers.

Just as phonemic awareness is a pre-requisite to learning phonics and becoming a successful reader, developing number sense is a pre-requisite for succeeding in math(pg. 26)

"Number sense can be considered the innate beginnings of math intelligence. But the extent to which it becomes an individual's major talent still rests with the type and strength of the genetic input and the environment in which the individual grows and learns."(pg 33)

Calculations are difficult for the human brain. Only number sense is innate.

Children in the primary grades suffer from a shift from intuitive number sense to rote memorization.

* "The idea is to use the students' innate sense of patterning to build a multiplication network without memorizing the tables themselves." (pg. 46)