ABSTRACT
This book aims at supporting the youngest children, the most relevant, developmentally appropriate concepts and structures are emphasized. Young children need opportunities to develop a concrete understanding of more and less in order to grow into confident calculators. The very basis of calculation is number. Without firm foundations in number and counting, children will always struggle to be effective calculators. It is only when children develop and build a solid understanding of the number patterns, where numbers are in relation to others and the connections between them that they will be able to work fluidly with them to add, subtract, divide and multiply. For some children working securely and confidently at the building up phase, the multiplication sign could be introduced as an alternative way of recording. Practitioners are like assistants in a DIY store, helping children to add tools to their mathematical tool box, so they know just which tool they need to use when a problem needs solving.
