Place Value In Early Childhood Education

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Reys states that “without place value, we would get no place with numbers” (Reys et al., 2012, p. 167), a defining statement in the importance of place value in early childhood education. In order to understand place value children must learn to recognise, model, represent and order numbers. They need to be able to group, partition and rearrange numbers in order to apply place value to partitioning and be able to estimate and round numbers as well (Reys et al., 2012, p. 168). Place value provides us with an organised structure to counting (Reys et al., 2012, p. 168). The principals that are learned remain the same no matter how large the numbers become and provide a way to transition from one to two to three and four digit numbers and are fundamental …show more content…

168–169). Understanding that place value means that any number can be represented by using only ten digits (0-9) contributes to the development of number sense (Reys et al., 2012, p. 169). Teaching place value promotes two key ideas. These are: that explicit grouping or trading rules are defined and consistently followed and the position of a digit determines the number being represented (Reys et al., 2012, p. 169). Children learn that one digit numbers are our base and then we develop thinking in tens, that is, 10 ones are 1 ten (Reys et al., 2012, p. 169). Booker suggests that place value be taught with two digit numbers from 20-99, building up each place to three digits and so on (Booker, Bond, Sparrow, & Swan, 2014, p. 93). Children also need exposure to nonstandard forms of number such as scientific forms. Young children typically have early exposure to number via such items as digital clocks, microwave timers, calendars and house numbers (Reys et al., 2012, p. 170). Since all children have different prior experiences it is vital that numbers be modelled (Reys et al., 2012, pp. …show more content…

There is a need to be able to compose and decompose numbers for example, 25= 1ten + 15ones or 5 groups of 5ones, which could be shown with different coin combinations. This is also where common misconceptions such as reversing the order of the digits can be seen (Reys et al., 2012, p. 175). Students also need to be able to record results accurately, be able to connect models to concepts and recognise pictures and symbols (Reys et al., 2012, p. 175). Reys tells us that encouraging children to name the same number in different ways promotes number sense and that not providing sufficient practice at this level often leads to confusion when progressing to four digit operations, decimals and measurement (Reys et al., 2012, p. 176). The naming of the teen numbers is often difficult as well due to the order of the symbols used to represent them, children are induced to record them incorrectly and require practice (Booker et al., 2014, p.

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