ABSTRACT
The first cycle of basic education in Portugal, usually called primary school, includes grades 1–4 (children 6–10 years old). Primary teachers are global teachers; that is, they teach all the subjects. For most of them, their mathematics knowledge and their mathematics education are rather weak. Indeed a large number of these teachers did not have any mathematics education in their preservice courses. Only in 1976 was a new curriculum established in mainstream schools which included mathematics as a subject. So, a large percentage of present primary school teachers did not have any mathematics education in their preservice courses, and there has not been any systematic inservice education in recent years. Some studies suggest that a large number of primary school teachers teach in the same way as they were taught, with a great emphasis in paper and pencil computations (Fernandes, 1985).
