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My attention was caught by a tweet by @wanstad73 curated on my daily paper over at paper.li on September 13, linking to the Guardian article. Having taught number facts myself as a classroom teacher, and now teaching preservice teachers the importance of laying a good foundation in number facts in all 4 operations, I have a strong interest in the topic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Let\u2019s just say I was alarmed by a claim that memorization of number facts is unnecessary for success in primary or elementary maths. Surely, my thinking goes, without knowing number facts by heart, children will be unable to tackle later maths, not just in computation, but also in geometry, measurement, probability, algebra; pretty much all mathematics topics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe Development and Importance of Proficiency in Basic Calculation\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n I had a look at the original article<\/a> by Professor Richard Cowan at the Department of Psychology and Human Development, Institute of Education in the University of London. Surely the study\u2019s author himself hadn\u2019t said number facts were not necessary, as these secondary reports were saying?<\/p>\n\n\n\n It shouldn\u2019t be a surprise that media outlets have picked on the idea that number facts are not really important. The English National Curriculum requires all addition facts to 20 to be memorized by the end of Year 3. So the idea that a research study has proven not only that Year 3 students aren\u2019t<\/em> learning all their facts, but furthermore those facts aren\u2019t really that important could be expected to catch the interest of journalists whose bosses want to sell more advertising. But is that really what the research showed?<\/p>\n\n\n\n To summarize, Prof Cowan and his fellow authors say the following:<\/p>\n\n\n\n The report\u2019s authors describe the differences between a traditional view<\/em> of learning number facts and a progressive view<\/em>. According to them, the traditional view, in vogue in the 1920s and 1930s, favours rote memorization of number facts, whereas the progressive view focuses on children \u2018learning numerical principles and patterns and knowing how to use them efficiently and accurately\u2019 (Cowan 2011, p. 4).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Rote Learning vs Developing Understanding of Numbers<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n A comparison is thus set up between rote learning of facts and developing understanding of mathematical principles. What can we learn from this comparison?<\/p>\n\n\n\n