The Evolution of Place Value Understanding

There are a number of skills that are critical to math success in the elementary grades.  Among them are an understanding of number and of place value. We started the year in grades kindergarten through fourth with a focus on place value. We emphasize that the position of each digit in a number determines its value, and we help students develop this understanding through grade appropriate practice.  In kindergarten and first grade this means that at this time in the year, we focus on numbers up to 10, in second grade we look at numbers up to 1000, in third grade numbers up to 10,000 and in fourth grade numbers up to 100,000.

Place value serves as an important foundation for much of the math work that we do in lower school. It is essential to have a strong foundation in place value in order to achieve success in making sense of our number system (based on the digits 0-9 and referred to as a base-ten system), counting, adding multi-digit numbers, money and many other math skills.  When teaching computation, we don't want to develop students who merely memorize algorithms, but rather, who are able to apply their understanding of place value to help them work with numbers, whether using mental math to compute or when solving multi-step problems.    

One way that we help students practice place value concepts is by learning to represent numbers in different ways, including standard (number) form, expanded form and word form.  We introduce these forms in second grade, which helps students learn to break numbers apart.  For example, if you are a looking at the number 258, understanding that is made up of 200+50+8 is important for successfully working with that number.

Also, just a reminder...

A great way to learn more about the sequence of math concepts at your child’s grade level is to check out the ‘Parent Resources’ section of the AFS Lower School Math website.  I have included videos for each grade, organized by chapter, to help you get a sense of what your child is learning in math.  These videos can be helpful if your child has a question about his or her math homework or if you just want a deeper understanding of how the concepts are being taught in school.

To go directly to the Parent Resources section of the website, click here.  Scroll to the bottom of the page to find the ‘Videos’ section.