Number Sense Routines: Building Numerical Literacy Every Day in Grades K-3

In this groundbreaking and highly practical book, Number Sense Routines: Building Numerical Literacy Every Day in Grades K-3, author Jessica Shumway proposes that all children have innate number sense which can be developed through daily exercise. Shumway created a series of math routines designed to help young students strengthen and build their facility with numbers. These quick 5, 10, or 15 minute exercises are easy to implement as an add-on to any elementary math curriculum.

Understanding Number Sense: Students with strong number sense understand numbers, how to subitize, relationships among numbers, and number systems. They make reasonable estimates, compute fluently, use reasoning strategies, and use visual models to solve problems. Number Sense Routines supports the early learner by instilling the importance of daily warm-ups and explains how they benefit developing math minds for long-term learning.

Real Classroom Examples: Shumway compiled her classroom observations from around the country. She includes conversations among students who practice number sense routines to illustrate them in action, how children's number sense develops with daily use, and math strategies students learn as they develop their numerical literacy through self-paced practice.

Assessment Strategies: Number Sense Routines demonstrates the importance of listening to your students and knowing what to look for. Teachers will gain a deeper understanding of the underlying math skills and strategies students learn as they develop numerical literacy.

Shumway writes, "As you read, you will step into various classrooms and listen in on students' conversations, which I hope will give you insight into the power of number sense routines and the impact they have on students' number sense development. My hope is that going into the classroom, into students' conversations, and into their thought processes, you will come away with new ideas and tools to use in your own classroom."

Author: Jessica Shumway
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 03/24/2011
Pages: 192
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 1.05lbs
Size: 10.00h x 8.00w x 0.41d
ISBN: 9781571107909

About the Author
Shumway, Jessica F.: -

Jessica Shumway has worked as a second-, third-, and fourth-grade classroom teacher and as a mathematics coach for teachers of Pre-K-through fifth grade in Texas and Virginia. She is currently an assistant professor of mathematics education at Utah State University.

During Jessica's undergraduate years at the George Washington University, she volunteered at an elementary school and a high school in Washington, D.C. She tutored students in math and English and found that she really looked forward to her time in the schools and with the students. "The more I was in the schools and the more I inquired about teaching, I realized that I wanted to be a part of such an important profession." Jessica says that she became a teacher because teaching is a meaningful and challenging profession. "It is true hands-on, active work in which there is never a dull moment. As a teacher, you really get to know and understand a group of young people. You get to watch them grow and reach their goals."

She admits that she sort of stumbled upon math education as her area of focus: "I always liked math, but was never really passionate about it or thought about pursuing it beyond college requirements--until I became a teacher. The first time I learned to use base-ten blocks for instruction, I realized that I never had a visual representation in my mind of how our base-ten, place-value number system works. When I went through Cognitively Guided Instruction training, I was floored by kindergartners' strategies in solving multiplication and division problems. Each year as I learned more and more about students' learning trajectories in number sense and understood how the tasks I created for math lessons highlight big ideas for kids to construct themselves, I was hooked!"

Jessica now conducts research focused on understanding and improving early childhood mathematics education and works hard to instill a love of mathematics teaching to her undergraduate students. She lives in the small town of Logan, Utah, and enjoys outdoor adventures with her husband and their three young boys.