Teaching to Improve Six-year-old First-graders’ Understanding of Number Sense Concepts

Abstract

Introduction. The focus of this qualitative study aimed to investigate how teaching to improve number sense concepts understanding to grade one learners can be attained as this is relevant to build a strong mathematics background. As the purpose was to improve number sense concepts understanding, the study employed a purposive sampling technique in its method, resulting in a total of five participants selected based on specific criteria. This method was guided by a research question: How do we teach to improve number sense concepts understanding grade one learners? Data were collected through interviews, observations, and document analysis and analysed using thematic analysis. Some of the results in the findings useful to improve number sense concepts understanding include contextualizing using mediating tools that are in the learners’ environment. The conclusion drawn is the findings contribute to the existing literature and provide valuable insights for educators, policymakers, and researchers on how teaching to improve number sense concepts understanding to grade one learners can be achieved. The prospect lies in its importance to provide strategies that can be used to improve number sense concepts understanding in the context of the area where it was carried and even extrapolated to other contexts and also at the same time build a strong mathematics background at an early stage.