Numeracy, literacy and Newman's Error Analysis

Allan Leslie White

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    Abstract

    Newman (1977, 1983) defined five specific literacy and numeracy skills as crucial to performance on mathematical word problems: reading, comprehension, transformation, process skills, and encoding. Newman’s Error Analysis (NEA) provided a framework for considering the reasons that underlay the difficulties students experienced with mathematical word problems and a process that assisted teachers to determine where misunderstandings occurred. NEA also provided directions for where teachers could target effective teaching strategies to overcome them. NEA experienced a reawakening in Australia and has been included in a number of programs such as the Counting On program in the Australian state of New South Wales. This paper presents findings of a pre-post test given to 1213 students participating in the 2008 Counting On program and examines NEA as a diagnostic tool linking numeracy and literacy and will discuss how teachers have also used NEA as a remediation and general classroom pedagogical strategy for primary and secondary schools.
    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)129-148
    Number of pages20
    JournalJournal of Science and Mathematics Education in Southeast Asia
    Volume33
    Issue number2
    Publication statusPublished - 2010

    Keywords

    • literacy
    • mathematics
    • numeracy
    • study and teaching
    • word problems (mathematics)

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