This paper reports on results of a targeted and extended (two school terms) program for building Grade 3 and Grade 4 students' facility with number facts and application for mental computation. As part of a larger project, this paper reports results from two schools. Results indicated strong gains in number fact recall and mental computation for…

There is a growing awareness that many children are not developing fast and accurate retrieval-based strategies for solving single-digit addition problems. In this study we individually assessed 166 third and fourth grade children to identify a group of children (called accurate-min-counters) who frequently solved simple single-digit addition…

Moving from arithmetic to algebraic thinking at early grades is foundational in the study of number patterns and number relationships. This qualitative study investigates mental computational activity in a third grade classroom's and its relationship to algebraic thinking and reasoning. The data sources include classroom observations, field notes,…

Marlene Chesney describes a piece of research where the participants were asked to complete a calculation, 16 + 8, and then asked to describe how they solved it. The diversity of invented strategies will be of interest to teachers along with the recommendations that are made. So "how do 'you' solve 16 + 8?"

This longitudinal study was conducted in order to determine and improve the mental addition strategies of students in their 2nd and 3rd years at elementary school. The first part of the study used the qualitative research method of case study, while the second part adopted the single group pretest-posttest quasi-experimental design. The study…

In this paper, we share the results of the piloting of national diagnostic assessments for strategic calculation with Grade 3 learners in South Africa. The diagnostic assessment pilot intervention was focused on promoting strategic use of calculation strategies and aimed to move learners on from the concrete one-to-one counting methods that…

The aim of this research was to examine the role of working memory in moderating the effects of automaticity on mental addition in 40 Chinese third-graders from the perspectives of task characteristics and individual characteristics. In Study 1, a 2 (working memory load [WML]) × 2 (automaticity), within-subjects design was utilized. There was…

The research examined the calculation methods used by pupils in Grades 3-6 when they were presented with problems that could be worked out efficiently and flexibly by applying number sense. The study was conducted with a convenience sample of 179 pupils between the ages 7 years and 10 months to 12 years and 10 months. in mainstream education in…

Many studies in the past decades have focused on low and typical mathematics achievers, yet little is known about children with high mathematics achievement, particularly at a young age. The current study aimed to fill this gap and started from the early work of Krutetskii (1976) as a theoretical lens to study the characteristics of high…

The aim of this study was to investigate the specific numerical and calculation abilities of 28 children with ADHD without comorbid mathematical learning disabilities (LD), ranging from the 1st to the 5th grade of primary school, and to examine the stability or the development of the arithmetic profile. Our results showed that a high percentage of…

Soroban abacus training is called as mental arithmetic training in our country. It is known for mental arithmetic to increase the ability of four mode operations. Besides this, how is the situation for the students which are having Soroban abacus training in the terms of problem solving abilities, creativity, development of concepts, attraction…