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Identifying Opportunities for Grade One Children to Acquire Foundational Number Sense: Developing a Framework for Cross Cultural Classroom Analyses

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An Erratum to this article was published on 06 February 2015

Abstract

It is known that an appropriately developed foundational number sense (FONS), or the ability to operate flexibly with number and quantity, is a powerful predictor of young children’s later mathematical achievement. However, until now not only has FONS been definitionally elusive but instruments for identifying opportunities for children to acquire its various components have been missing from the classroom observation tools available. In this paper, drawing on a constant comparison analysis of appropriate literature, we outline the development of an eight dimensional FONS framework. We then show, by applying this framework to three culturally diverse European grade one lessons, one English, one Hungarian and one Swedish, that it is both straightforwardly operationalised and amenable to cross cultural analyses of classroom practice. Some implications are discussed.

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Notes

  1. Typically, Klara located everything she taught within a narrative or story for the day.

  2. In Hungarian sz is an alphabetic letter pronounced like s in the English word sun.

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  1. Stockholm University, 106 91, Stockholm, Sweden

    Paul Andrews & Judy Sayers

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  1. Paul Andrews
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  2. Judy Sayers
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Correspondence to Paul Andrews.

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Andrews, P., Sayers, J. Identifying Opportunities for Grade One Children to Acquire Foundational Number Sense: Developing a Framework for Cross Cultural Classroom Analyses. Early Childhood Educ J 43, 257–267 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10643-014-0653-6

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