Content area
Full text
What Teachers Need to Know about Numeracy. PETER WESTWOOD. 2008. Camberwell, VIC, Australia: Australian Council of Educational Research Ltd (ACER). 100 pp.
Peter Westwood sets out to explore emerging numeracy issues in mathematics programmes. He has been thorough in exploring issuesglobally,making reference to numeracy projects in New Zealand, Australia, the UK, the USA and parts of Asia. Over his 100 pages he highlights similar findings and understandings from the varied approaches the education systems in these countries have taken to address emerging needs in mathematics education. Therefore the book is useful in the first instance as a general summary of the state of mathematics within each nation. Numeracy is largely the political term used for mathematics in general. The book outlines the definitions for both numeracy and mathematics in the various countries discussed and the contexts within which these terms are used. For the remainder of this review I will use the word mathematics to ensure all the Achievement Objectives in The New Zealand Curriculum (Ministry of Education, 2007a) are included.
I see this book as an initiator of ideas and to confirm practices many countries already have in place for the development of numeracy. Therefore, as there are a lot of ideas covered in brief, the reader is urged to dig deeper in the 'links' sections at the end of each chapter to develop the dies further. It is very useful to have all the links summarised in one place for numeracy educators to refer to and use.
Each of the seven chapters has its own discrete topic. These are very relevant to teaching numeracy and touch on ideas and issues that are very current in New Zealand since the introduction of the Numeracy Development Project in 1999. Issues around context and content in Chapter...