An exploration of young children’s number sense on entry to primary school in Ireland
Dunphy, Elizabeth
(2006)
An exploration of young children’s number sense on entry to primary school in Ireland.
Doctor of Education thesis, Dublin City University.
The importance of number sense lies in its relationship with mathematical
proficiency. Consequently, number sense is increasingly emphasised in
curriculum documentation related to mathematics. The Primary School
Curriculum: Mathematics (Government of Ireland, 1999b) is no exception.
It implicitly stresses the importance of number sense and draws teachers’
attention to a range of key aspects. My study is premised on the belief that
young children’s number sense is developed as a result of their everyday
experiences with numbers, and these experiences form the basis on which
further development of number sense, both in and out of school, takes place.
Two questions are investigated: What number sense do young children
demonstrate on entry to school?; What is the congruence between young
children’s number sense and the curriculum for the first year of primary
school?
The first question is explored through individual experience-based flexible,
focused interviews with fourteen children (eight boys and six girls) early in
their first term at primary school. The age-range of the children was 4 years,
1 month to 5 years, 1 month. The second question is addressed by means of
an analysis of relevant curriculum documentation and then linking that
analysis to the data analysis.
A framework for exploring number sense in young children was developed.
This included four aspects: Pleasure and interest in number; Understandings
of the purposes of number; Quantitative thinking; and
Awareness/Understanding of numerals.
Affective issues emerged as centrally important in the development of
children’s number sense. Counting purposes were most transparent for
children, with generic, communicative and label purposes also identified by
them. There were striking differences in the ways in which girls and boys
constructed their metacognitive framework in relation to number. Children’s
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responses to quantification tasks provided interesting insights into how
children perceived such tasks. The process of estimation appears to be
challenging for many four-year-old children.
A number of areas of omission were identified in the teacher guidelines that
accompany the curriculum documents. Implications were drawn with
respect to how aspects of children’s number sense, for example estimation,
are developed at school. Implications for teacher education are also
discussed.