MESHGuides

Assessment must be part of learning because teaching is not the same as learning:

Consider the following extract adapted from Denvir and Brown (1986):

One student was assessed as having the following 'gaps' in her knowledge.

She does not know:

Being able to talk about these operations seems to be important in thinking about and doing these operations (see for example Anna Sfard (2001)). If the child is unable to talk about and model these ideas (e.g. on a number line) then their understanding may be operational and not relational (Skemp 1976), they may be parroting not thinking. There is a great deal more vocabulary that must be secure before moving onto multiplication and division.

Firstly children must be secure when counting and must understand 'more than' and 'less than'. They must be able to count on and count back and have developed the vocabulary to do so.

Assessment for learning and formative assessment tend to be used interchangeably. There is some disagreement about how formative and summative assessment are defined and that is in part due to the breadth of actions that can be considered formative. Summative assessments can, without doubt, be used formatively ( Black et al 2002). There is some agreement that the process of using assessments formatively:

Mathematics is not the same all over the world. There are some differences between cultures that affects the reading and writing of mathematics. Some of these differences are:

Mathematics has some specific issues of language use. Some of these are:

Mathematics is sometimes seen as a language in itself. For example, Wakefield (2000) argues that mathematics is a language as it has the following characteristics:

Kersaint et al (2013) suggests 5 principles:

All students need support with mathematical literacy. The characteristics listed below may indicate that a student needs help to overcome barriers to reading and writing mathematics. Not all students will exhibit all these characteristics. Students may experince barriers in writing, reading or talking mathematics and/or explaining their thinking processes.

Charcteristics of students who lack of fluency in mathematical literacy can include: