Pre-number Concepts & Beginning Processes

1. Synthesis of Big Ideas

The week 5 content covered pre-number concepts and beginning processes. I found the Caldwell
pattern to interesting and extremely useful; something that I will definitely refer to in my
teaching of pre number concepts.
Throughout the lecture, we learnt:
- determining attributes
- matching by attributes
- sorting by attributes

Subitising- the ability to recognise the number of

objects without actually counting.

- comparing by attributes
- ordering attributes
- patterning
Week five also covered the five counting principles listed below:
1. One to one correspondence
2. Stable order- position
3. Cardinal principle- counting (how many?)

These skills assist with the understanding of the

number concept and aim to provide knowledge
that is necessary when studying number.

4. Abstraction
5. Order irrelevance
(Jamieson-Proctor, R. 2016)

2. Concepts, Skills & Strategies

Pre-number concepts relate to the concepts, skills and strategies children need before beginning to
study the unit of number. Determining, matching, sorting, comparing, ordering and patterning are all
concepts of pre number and beginning processes.
These concepts have related skills e.g., the concept of sorting is separating a large group of coloured
socks into clearly identifiable smaller groups of perhaps the same colour and/or size. The skill of
sorting is to decide, do and describe the sorting out undertaken e.g., I have sorted coloured socks by
colour here are the blue ones, here are the yellow ones and here are the red ones. For the
strategy, the children should be able to determine how they will go about implementing the activity,
and select a process of how they will actually do it. However, in order for children to fully
understand and apply these pre-number concepts they need to be given the opportunity to
physically move the objects around to establish their understanding of the concept, skills and
strategy.
(Jamieson-Proctor, R. 2016)

3. Teaching Strategies
-

Discussion is an important teaching strategy as students are able to ask questions

and have them answered and interact with their peers
I believe brainstorming and group work are also effective teaching strategies that
could be used to assist children to understand the mathematical concept of prenumber.

The website sourced below consists of a variety of group and individual activities that
could be conducted in the classroom when teaching pre-number concepts.
https://www.pinterest.com/kristinedwards1/pre-number-concepts/

4. Misconceptions
A common misconception student's encounter when developing their understanding of
pre-number concepts is that subitising could be that the students dont instantly recognise
how many are in a small group (e.g. 0-10) without the need to actually count them. The
children are unable to visualise and identify the number as soon as it is shown to them
without counting. According to the Victorian State Government (2015), Children need to
develop flexible mental objects for each of the numbers that go beyond the recognition of
number names and numerals to include rich part-part-whole knowledge based on visual
imagery.
To avoid this, a variety of different group and/or individual games could be played on a daily
basis or more than once a day with the children using the Caldwell pattern template, dice,
etc. An example of a game can be the fastest group to identify the number on the dice
wins. It may take a few days or perhaps even weeks for some students to be able to
immediately identify a number without having to count it. Teachers must you the right
materials where children will easily be able to remember numbers and picture it in their
heads.

5. ACARA Links

6. Resources and Ideas

This video is about sorting by attributes and is a great resource for teachers to use as it assists in
demonstrating to children how to sort by shapes, colours, size etc. It is great to use as an
introduction to the concept of sorting.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VmCJOvkvOGs
The resource below is great for teaching to use as it consists of practical teaching ideas relating to
the concept of sorting and patterning.
http://www.education.vic.gov.au/school/teachers/teachingresources/discipline/maths/continuum/
Pages/simpattern05.aspx

7. Synthesis of Textbook
1. Prenumber development
-

Classification- can be done with or without numbers

Patterns- vital to mathematics and includes creating, constructing and describing
Patterns which requires problem solving skills.

2. Early number development

-

Conversation
Group recognition- patterns provide number sense experience
One-to-one correspondence & comparisons- comparisons of quantities are
important to learning how to count and developing number awareness.

3. Number development
-

Connecting groups with number names (oral, written cardinal & ordinal numbers),
counting forward and backward, skip counting, establishing benchmarks of
quantities (e.g. 5 or 10), place value

(Reys et al., 2012)