Number Agents

There are numerous buzzwords in education today, but the term "structured maths" has left me somewhat puzzled. Structured Literacy is a term trademarked by the International Dyslexia Association (IDA), so is there any value in using a similar term for maths? If so, what on earth does it mean? Let's start by addressing the problems with how we have been teaching maths: Lack of Guidance Firstly, if your experience has been anything like mine, we've had very little guidance on what to actually teach. We had numbers and a set of strands, but our teaching seemed to oscillate between these without any clear connection or deliberate intention.  I'd spend a week on this, a week on that, to be frank, I was aiming for coverage, not learning. Ineffective Numeracy Approaches Secondly, our numeracy approach has often prioritised counting as a means to calculate. This has led to many children struggling to develop effective strategies for achieving fluency in mathematics.   Gap...

 This has been a hot topic recently.  With Tim Shanahan's blog post on the research behind decodable books and their use (of which there has not been a lot)  Blog post here . Firstly let me say, I love his work, his research and insights have shaped a lot of what I do now.   But let's put some perspective on the post. Very basically, the research is limited and unclear, leading to his last comment. "I think it’s okay to use decodable texts as part of phonics instruction, but such practice should be  limited, and even beginning readers should be reading (not just listening to) more than decodable texts." This issue is complex and, in my opinion, not as straightforward as "Decodable's are nice to have, but not needed," as some might believe based on this last comment. It's crucial to consider both research and practice in this matter. Given the high cost and difficulty of conducting relevant research, we must rely on practical experiences to answer que...