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Mathematics Education Research Journal

, Volume 29, Issue 1, pp 93–112 | Cite as

Mapping the acquisition of the number word sequence in the first year of school

  • Peter Gould
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
First Online:

Abstract

Learning to count and to produce the correct sequence of number words in English is not a simple process. In NSW government schools taking part in Early Action for Success, over 800 students in each of the first 3 years of school were assessed every 5 weeks over the school year to determine the highest correct oral count they could produce. Rather than displaying a steady increase in the accurate sequence of the number words produced, the kindergarten data reported here identified clear, substantial hurdles in the acquisition of the counting sequence. The large-scale, longitudinal data also provided evidence of learning to count through the teens being facilitated by the semi-regular structure of the number words in English. Instead of occurring as hurdles to starting the next counting sequence, number words corresponding to some multiples of ten (10, 20 and 100) acted as if they were rest points. These rest points appear to be artefacts of how the counting sequence is acquired.

Keywords

Oral counting First year of school Irregular counting words Teaching-learning path Counting hurdles 
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Notes

Acknowledgements

I acknowledge with appreciation the assistance of the Instructional Leaders and the classroom teachers involved in Early Action for Success in the collection of the kindergarten data. I would also like to thank Janette Bobis for her helpful comments on a draft of this paper, which developed from a conference presentation, and Bob Wright for his continuing support for my learning about how children work with number.

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Copyright information

© Mathematics Education Research Group of Australasia, Inc. 2017

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.NSW Department of Education (retired)SydneyAustralia

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