Why Students Struggle with Number Sense
Number sense feels easy to spot but hard to define, right? Some students have it and others don’t (yet). If we want to help students with number sense we need a clear idea of our goal. How might a student with number sense solve 19+14?
They might visualize 19 and 14, and realize that 19 is a number close to 20, and (instead of breaking it up into 10 and 9) take one from 14 to transform the problem into 20+13. Here’s what that might look like (in their brain, since they’re likely visualizing it rather than physically modeling it):
How about 12×15?
Here, the student with number sense might treat the 15 like a number that can be doubled to make 30 (15 is not just a 10 and a 5) and transform the problem into 6 groups of 30 rather than 12 groups of 15.
Why do I keep emphasizing the word “number?” Because…
Number sense involves choosing how to break up, combine, or operate on numbers without losing track of the numbers themselves.
Students with number sense look at numbers like 19 and 15 and get a sense for how to work with them in a given problem. That’s number sense!
Why do students struggle with number sense? I believe they don’t get enough opportunity to decide HOW to work with numbers. Without this agency, students aren’t developing an understanding of WHY or WHEN to break up, combine, or operate on numbers.
How do we give the power back to our students? I will share more in my next post: My favorite way to build number sense. Stay tuned!