This book is for teachers of children in preschool through grade 4. It is designed to help teachers make important decisions about the mathematics curriculum and give them some effective ways to help children attain the mathematical power needed for everyday use and for future careers. Relevant research in each chapter provides a framework and dependable justification for the suggested curriculum and instructional strategies. Instructional activities are interwoven to furnish practical and useful ideas that teachers can modify and expand. Effective teaching, viewed as an interactive activity, is a major goal of this book. The intent is to help teachers understand the spirit of this interaction, the way tasks should be presented, the kind of questions to ask, the way manipulatives should be used to stimulate and develop thinking, and the way children's responses should be used to make instructional decisions. Included are 14 chapters: (1) "New Directions in Mathematics Education"; (2) "Developing Mathematical Knowledge in the Young Child"; (3) "Developing Problem-solving Abilities and Attitudes"; (4) "Concepts of Number"; (5) "Place Value and Larger Numbers"; (6) "A Problem-solving Approach to the Operations"; (7) "Strategies of the Basic Facts"; (8) "Whole Number Computation"; (9) "Fractions and Decimals"; (10) "Geometric Concepts and Spatial Sense"; (11) "Measurement"; (12) "Graphical Representation and Probability"; (13) "Using Microcomputers for Mathematics Learning"; and (14) "Planning for Mathematics Instruction". (KR)