This tutor pack and accompanying student guide covers the Basic Skills curriculum in numeracy specifically for childcare students at further education (FE) level. The pack offers the busy tutor all they need to teach their childcare students numeracy.

This volume presents current research on the connections between the home and family environment on children’s mathematics development. Focusing on infancy through first grade, it details the role of parents and other caregivers in promoting numeracy and the ways their active participation can prepare young children for learning about formal mathematics. Research data answer key questions regarding the development of numeracy alongside cognitive and linguistic skills, early acquisition of specific math skills, and numeracy of children with atypical language skills. The book also provides practical recommendations for parents and other caregivers as well as implications for future research studies and curriculum design. Included in the coverage: Ways to optimize home numeracy environments. Individual differences in numerical abilities. Cross-cultural comparisons and ways to scaffold young children's mathematical skills. Mathematics and language in the home environment. Center-based and family-based child care. Games and home numeracy practice. Early Childhood Mathematics Skill Development in the Home Environment is an essential resource for researchers, graduate students, and professionals in infancy and early childhood development, child and school psychology, early childhood education, social work, mathematics education, and educational psychology.

Being numerate involves more than mastering basic mathematics. Numeracy connects the mathematics learned at school with out-of-school situations that require capabilities such as problem solving, critical judgment, and sense-making related to non-mathematical contexts. This book provides prospective and practising teachers with practical, research-based strategies for embedding numeracy across the primary and secondary school curriculum. Based on the authors' ten-year research program, the text explains what numeracy is and how numeracy has developed as an educational goal. It describes in detail the five dimensions of the authors' model: attention to real-life contexts; application of mathematical knowledge; use of physical, representational and digital tools; the promotion of positive dispositions towards the use of mathematics to solve problems encountered in day-to-day life; and a critical orientation to interpreting mathematical results and making evidence-based judgements. There is guidance on how to embed numeracy across all subjects within the curriculum, how to assess numeracy learning and how to deal with challenges and dilemmas including working with discipline boundaries and developing support resources. Featuring practical examples and case studies throughout, this book will build pre-service teacher confidence, demystify common misconceptions and grounds theory into practice in this vital area of student competency. 'The authors of this text are recognised authorities on numeracy. They have engaged heavily in numeracy research over many years and this text reflects the depth of their understanding and knowledge.' - Geoff Hilton, University of Queensland

The teacher training framework, introduced in September 2007, requires all teachers in the post-16 sector to possess knowledge, understanding and personal skills to at least level 2 in the minimum core for numeracy. Coverage and assessment of the core have to be embedded in all Certificate and Diploma courses leading to QTLS and ATLS status. This book is a practical guide to numeracy for trainee teachers in the Lifelong Learning sector. It enables trainee teachers to identify and develop their own numeracy skills and also to support their students′ numeracy.

Accessing up-to-date information about general and specific learning difficulties is made easy, with this indispensable reference book. Covering difficulties that relate to children, adolescents and adults, it includes: crucial legislation to keep practitioners 'in the know' useful addresses, telephone numbers and websites It also includes explanations of leaning difficulties including those less than well-known syndromes such as semantic pragmatic difficulties.

Children are already learning at birth, and they develop and learn at a rapid pace in their early years. This provides a critical foundation for lifelong progress, and the adults who provide for the care and the education of young children bear a great responsibility for their health, development, and learning. Despite the fact that they share the same objective - to nurture young children and secure their future success - the various practitioners who contribute to the care and the education of children from birth through age 8 are not acknowledged as a workforce unified by the common knowledge and competencies needed to do their jobs well. Transforming the Workforce for Children Birth Through Age 8 explores the science of child development, particularly looking at implications for the professionals who work with children. This report examines the current capacities and practices of the workforce, the settings in which they work, the policies and infrastructure that set qualifications and provide professional learning, and the government agencies and other funders who support and oversee these systems. This book then makes recommendations to improve the quality of professional practice and the practice environment for care and education professionals. These detailed recommendations create a blueprint for action that builds on a unifying foundation of child development and early learning, shared knowledge and competencies for care and education professionals, and principles for effective professional learning. Young children thrive and learn best when they have secure, positive relationships with adults who are knowledgeable about how to support their development and learning and are responsive to their individual progress. Transforming the Workforce for Children Birth Through Age 8 offers guidance on system changes to improve the quality of professional practice, specific actions to improve professional learning systems and workforce development, and research to continue to build the knowledge base in ways that will directly advance and inform future actions. The recommendations of this book provide an opportunity to improve the quality of the care and the education that children receive, and ultimately improve outcomes for children.