SCREENING THAT COUNTS - Why Australia needs universal early numeracy screening

should also consider the efficiency of the measure to enable screening many students in a short time.”(p.13) Gated screening is more accurate Screening tools should detect children at risk of than at a single-point-in-time mathematical failure, in ways that are reliable, screening accurate, and inform instructional decisions in One solution to this problem is the use of a clear and productive ways. [...] Figure 5: Schematic representation of the approaches of cognitive and behavioural psychology fields to screening research in mathematics 12 Cognitive psychology: The search In the early years of schooling, students’ mental for a core deficit representation of the number line overestimates the distance between smaller numbers and The search for a core deficit in numeracy compresses the distance bet. [...] The development of a more linear revealed that phonological processing deficits mental number line where values are equally (sensitivity to and use of the sound structure spaced has been shown to be reliably related to of spoken language, which includes the ability mathematics achievement in the early years of to isolate individual sounds in speech) appear school (see Figure 7).88 89 to be at the. [...] The fluency with which a skill is performed is The human mind has been shown to develop a related to the student’s stage of learning within spatial representation of numbers, on a line with an instructional hierarchy which begins with smaller numbers on the left and larger numbers acquisition and progresses to fluency building on the right.83 While humans are born with and finally mastery - enabli. [...] interpreting what is observed, has the freedom to alter tasks to promote the Having ‘predictive validity’ may mean the child’s understanding and probe his or her test scores themselves have been shown to reactions; the interviewer is permitted predict later maths achievement, or mastery to devise new problems, on the spot, in of the skills measured is predictive of later order to test hypotheses;.