Cognitive Foundations for Improving Mathematical Learning (Mathematical Cognition and Learning

by David C. Geary (editor), Daniel B. Berch (Editor), Kathleen Mann Koepke (Editor)

The fifth volume in the Mathematical Cognition and Learning series focuses on informal learning environments and other parental influences on numerical cognitive development and formal instructional interventions for improving mathematics learning and performance.  The chapters cover the use of numerical play and games for improving foundational number knowledge as well as school math performance, the link between early math abilities and the approximate number system, and how families can help improve the early development of math skills.  The book goes on to examine learning trajectories in early mathematics, the role of mathematical language in acquiring numeracy skills, evidence-based assessments of early math skills, approaches for intensifying early mathematics interventions, the use of analogies in mathematics instruction, schema-based diagrams for teaching ratios and proportions, the role of cognitive processes in treating mathematical learning difficulties, and addresses issues associated with intervention fadeout.

Identifies the relative influence of school and family on math learning Discusses the efficacy of numerical play for improvement in math Features learning trajectories in math Examines the role of math language in numeracy skills Includes assessments of math skills Explores the role of cognition in treating math-based learning difficulties

348 pages, Kindle Edition

Published January 3, 2019

About the author

David C. Geary is a cognitive developmental and evolutionary psychologist with interests in mathematical learning and sex differences. After receiving his Ph.D. in 1986 from the University of California at Riverside, he held faculty positions at the University of Texas at El Paso and the University of Missouri, first at the Rolla campus and then in Columbia. Dr. Geary is currently a Curators' Professor and a Thomas Jefferson Fellow in the Department of Psychological Sciences, and served as department chair from 2002-2005. He has published more than 240 articles and chapters across a wide range of topics, including cognitive, developmental, and evolutionary psychology, education, and medicine, including three sole-authored books, Children's mathematical development (1994), Male, female: The evolution of human sex differences (1998, now in second edition. 2010), and The origin of mind: Evolution of brain, cognition, and general intelligence (2005), and one co-authored book, Sex differences: Summarizing more than a century of scientific research (Ellis et al., 2008). He is co-editing a series of five books on Advances in Mathematical Cognition and Learning with Drs. Dan Berch and Kathy Mann Koepke. The first volume, Evolutionary origins and early development of basic number processing should be published in late 2014 or early 2015. He has given invited addresses in a variety of departments (anthropology, biology, behavior genetics, computer science, education, government, mathematics, neuroscience, physics, and psychology) and Universities throughout the United States, as well as in Canada, Europe and East Asia.