Primary Mathematics Integrating Theory with Practice

Developing computational skills and the concepts that underpin proportional reasoning is a large component of the primary mathematics curriculum. Moving children’s thinking towards proportional reasoning will be covered in more detail in Chapter 6. The research base about the development of number concepts in individual students goes back many years and is too large to address in detail (e.g. Björklund et al., 2020; Whitacre et al., 2020). In this chapter, the focus is on effective teaching to enhance learning: developing computational skills, the relationships between different operations and moving from additive to multiplicative thinking.