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…

Play is one of the most widely used teaching strategies in Foundation Phase. Grade 3 is the exit grade off the Foundation Phase in the South African context. This paper is an output of a Masters' dissertation that explored the use of play when teaching number sense to Grade 3 learners. The dissertation findings encouraged the researchers to…

The quantitative literature on parental reasons of school choice for their elementary school children was systematically reviewed using all major databases. The quality of the studies was assessed through a modified version of the Newcastle-Ottawa scale. Among 3982 references reviewed, 26 studies were included from 14 countries. Although large…

This paper explores Grade R teacher expressions of themselves as teachers of numeracy, and as teachers working in the transition phase of schooling, after their participation in a research-informed numeracy-focused professional development (PD) intervention. The Early Number Fun (ENF) programme had 33 teachers from 17 Eastern Cape schools…

Research on mathematical equivalence, and to some extent, on number structure in early grade mathematics, has shown that most students at primary and secondary levels understand these concepts instrumentally rather than relationally. The study reported in this paper uses a design research approach to explore both mathematical equivalence and…

Background: Many teachers for different reasons recognise the teaching of fraction as a challenge. This research explored the teaching of fraction in Grade 5 by three experienced teachers (Ben, Greg and Will) in KwaZulu-Natal province, South Africa. Aim: The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of different approaches to the…

This study used a modified mathematical knowledge for teaching (MKT) framework to compare the "common content knowledge" (CCK) of two groups of purposively selected pre-service primary mathematics teachers (n = 86) in relation to spatial visualization. Specifically, thirty-five pre-service teachers (n[subscript 1] = 35) with a pure…

This article reports the outcomes of research on student teachers' situational engagement during their third-year teaching practice in university-affiliated teaching schools (teacher training schools) at the universities of Helsinki, Finland and Johannesburg, South Africa. We have explored situations that possibly engage the student teachers…

Background: Within the ambit of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR), the use of technology-based tools within teaching and learning is advancing rapidly at education institutions globally, including the teaching and learning of mathematics. Learners and teachers have challenges with teaching and learning fractions in mathematics. A learner's…

The COVID-19 pandemic caused unprecedented disruption to education around the world. There is much to learn from this period, to better understand what happened, to provide support to those affected, and to inform future responses to disruption. This research aimed to contribute to this field by recording teachers' experiences of teaching in the…

In this paper, I argue that the establishment of after-school mathematics clubs in early grades holds rich potential for supporting the development of increasingly participatory and sensemaking maths learning dispositions. Within the South African Numeracy Chair project, lead by the author, multiple after-school mathematics clubs have been set up…

Background: Foundation phase teachers are not science specialists; however, they are expected to teach science. It is important that research determines where teachers face challenges in teaching science in order to assist them to bridge the gaps and to improve their competence in teaching science. Aim: The aim of this research was to explore…

The arts as a pedagogic medium can be an important tool for language learning, and yet many teachers avoid it, often because of a lack of confidence. The main purpose of this study was to explore the possibility of generalist educators, as opposed to art specialists, using the arts successfully as a cross-curricular tool to accelerate English…

Background: The judicious use of worksheets ought to contribute to the establishment of literacy, with a special significance for multilingual classrooms where neither teachers nor learners are mother tongue speakers of the instructional language. Disparity between the pedagogical intention of the worksheet and learners' interpretation of the…

Scientific literacy should be promoted through the teaching of science from Grade R and for this to happen, teachers need to understand what science should be taught and how it should be taught. This interpretive, qualitative study explores the degree to which four foundation phase teachers interpret the life skills programme with regard to the…