As a former 5th grade teacher of 13 years, I readily admit that I had no idea the complexity of the development of early numeracy from birth to kindergarten. It wasn't until I became a Math Coach K-5 and began delving into the research of Clements and Sarama on Learning Trajectories and Carpenter et al.'s Children's Mathematics: Cognitively Guided Instruction that I became fully aware of all the complexities of students' early numeracy development. Truly the more I learn, the more I realize I have to learn. Duncan et al.'s research (2007) on the connection between school readiness and later academic achievement found that while early reading skills predicted future reading achievement, early math skills predicted BOTH math and reading achievement!
Just think of the implications of this....if we were to begin math interventions in K-2 (rather than grade 3 when testing begins), we could be providing support that impacts overall academic achievement. DeAnn Huinker and Melissa Hedges's Math Trajectories for Young Learners is a must read for anyone working with young mathers (Thank you, Deborah Peart Crayton for that term!) Their research was a further exploration of early numeracy based on Dr. Doug Clements and Dr. Julie Sarama's learning trajectories decades-long research. They delve into the levels of counting, subitizing, adding & subtracting, and composing numbers including videos of young mathers, classroom vignettes, assessments and suggested activities.
Let's try this....how many dots are there AND how do you know?
How did you determine the number of dots? Did you count one-by- one or did your brain search for groups of dots that you could tell how many there were without counting? Perhaps you saw 4 on the top and 4 on the bottom? Or you saw a group of 3 and 3 more and then 2 more? The telling how many there are in a small group is called perceptual subitizing. The putting the smaller groups together to make a total of 8 is called conceptual subitizing. This skill can have a huge impact on academic achievement.
I loved the recent (free) NCTM webinar facilitated by DeAnn Huinker and Melissa Hedges reviewing their research and all that they share in their book. They shared Nguyen et al. (2016)'s research that showed that it was the advanced skills of counting objects with cardinality, counting forward from a given number, and conceptual subitizing that were most predictive of fifth grade math achievement. Please help me spread the word on this research!
Build Math Minds 10th Annual Virtual Math Summit
Christina Tondevold is hosting her 10th Annual Virtual Math Summit in just 2 weeks on Saturday, Feb 28th and Sunday, March 1st. All the sessions are FREE and almost all will be LIVE. They will all be recorded and you can watch them for free for 10 days with the option of paying a little bit to get access for a month. Dr. Doug Clements, as featured above, is presenting a session! I'm honored to be presenting as well as facilitating all the Grade 3-5 sessions. You can register here and see all the session topics here. Hope to see you there!
Webinars Hosted by NHTM
The New Hampshire Teachers of Mathematics has been honored to host some webinars this year that are a must watch! Dr Nicki Newton presented on "Reimagining Math with AI" using AI to create lessons and activities that meet the diverse needs of all learners and Kim Machnik presented on "Math for the Wiggler and Dreamers" providing supports for our students with ADHD. We recently hosted our 3rd webinar with Chase Orton on Beyond the Text Book: Ignite Thinking, Joy, and Engagement in Math Class which was fabulous as well.
What I've Been Listening To
There have been a bunch of amazing podcast episodes recently that are must listens!
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Tammy McMorrow, host of Little Minds, Big Thinkers, had Peter Liljedahl on for the first time! As always, I loved listening and learning.
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Hosts NCTM President Latrenda Knighten and NCTM President-Elect Dewey Gottleib chat with Jenny Bay-Williams and John SanGiovanni on Think, Talk, Choose: Math Routines That Grow Fluency on the NCTM podcast Adding it All Up.
What I've Been Reading
Readers Read, Writers Write, Mathers Math by Deborah Peart Crayton explores bridging the gap between literacy and math. There is a book study you can join through Mt. Holyoke, too! I'll be facilitating a couple of the sessions. Join me and register here!
Building a Positive Math Identity: A Brain-Science Approach by Liesl McConchie - I love her quote, "Students' emotional relationship with math is foundational to their cognitive relationship with math."
Dr Nicki Newton's new book AI in the Math Classroom: Grades PreK - 2 It's absolutely mind-blowing how AI can be your thought partner to ensure exploration of deep understanding of math content as well as supports for all the diverse needs of our learners. I had the honor of reading the grade 3-5 version and it is dynamite!
How you can learn with me!
Bureau of Education and Research (BER) all-day virtual seminars
Join me, Amy Stark, and Annmarie Johnson for the 2nd Grade Teachers: Powerful Strategies to Maximize Learning 2-Day Conference on April 22 & 23m 2026. There are sessions on Literacy, Math, and SEL.
As always, I am wishing you moments of joy and peace with those you love.
