D) Place Value Sequencing

Today’s session was on Place Value. We were asked by Dr Yeap this question: “If you are asked to teach children on Place Value, how would you sequence the five learning tasks mention below? Which order would you teach first using concrete materials and why?” Well this is my take on the above question.

So what IS an appropriate sequence?

1. Place value chart

2. Expanded Notation

3. Number in Numerals 

4. Number in Words

5. Tens and Ones notation

Personally, I will put the sequence as below:

Step 1: Number in Numerals (34)

Number in numerals can be seen everywhere and is more related to children. Children start with rote counting before they were even introduced to numbers in general. I chose this option as my priority because this method is apparently more familiar to children and therefore should be easier to introduce. As for the concrete materials and resources to aid my teaching, I would use ice-cream sticks. I would get the children to count the ice-cream sticks physically (the rote counting way) and introduce the way of writing down the particular number at the same time. This way, the children would be able to relate.

Step 2: Tens and Ones notation

I will next teach children the tens and ones notation using ice-cream sticks again. I will paint to represent 3 sticks in one color to indicate the value ten and 4 sticks in another color to represent the value one.

Step 3 : Place value chart

Next, I will introduce the place value chart to the children. I will explain to the children

why different numbers belong to different columns for eg the number ‘3’ should beplaced under the ‘tens’ column and number ‘4’ will be placed under the ‘ones’ column in the Place Value Chart, according to the value of these numbers.

Step 4: Expanded Notation

After knowing the place value of 34, I will go on and introduce the fourth step which is expanded notation. At this point, we could fairly explain to the children that 3 tens is actually equivalent to 30 and 4 ones is equal to the value 4. Thus when we add them

together, the new value is now 34.

Step 5: Number in Words

By then, the children would have familiarized themselves with place value and word numbers. The final step would be to teach them numbers in the form of words. Children would find this step a little harder to conserve as it involves spelling and learning to read these words. And even after that, the children still need to relate the number figures with the words accordingly, therefore this process might take a little longer to master.