Place Value to 100 will be available next week

Working in classrooms, we often notice areas that cause students particular difficulty. One of those areas is place value. We meet students even in Grade 4 who are doing 2-digit and 3-digit additions and, when asked, cannot read the answer correctly, nor do they have any idea if their answer is in the ball park.

Recently a Grade 4 boy was solving a problem using dots as counters, he got to 69 looked up and asked, ‘What comes after 69?’. When prompted, he continued the pattern until he reached 79, and then looked up for help again. Similarly when trying to teach students to use number splitting for value-based computations we meet students who know that the 2 in 27 means 20 but think that the 1 in 12 is just 1 not 10.

Clearly we are moving forward too fast with place value. Much research is suggesting that place value is an issue even in Grade 7.

So what goes wrong?

That was the question that we have been grappling with for quite some time. If students cannot actually count and count on in different patterns, how can they understand the role of digits in 2-digit and 3-digit numbers?

If they have not had experiences making single digit numbers in lots of different ways, how can they then understand that a number such as 36 can be made with three 10s and six 1s or with two 10s and sixteen 1s.

Difficulty with teen numbers is known to persist into Grade 4 - why then have we not paid more attention to developing deep understanding of teen numbers? Why do we rush when 'slowly slowly' wins the race?

The new package focuses on purposeful counting; understanding the magnitude of numbers to 100; sequencing numbers proportionally on an empty number line and solving problems requiring that numbers be grappled with, pulled apart put back together in many ways. Quantification and number sense are the driving forces used to build deep understanding of place value.

We hope you enjoy the package. Watch out over the next few days as videos of the place value games will be released.

Have a great year. Week Zero in South Australia next week and we are really excited to be in Adelaide next week working with teachers and yes you guessed it, showing off our new resources.