Schoolwide News

You may have heard your lower school children talk about “Number Talks” in math.  They may say something like, “We did math in our heads and showed how many strategies we had with our fingers,” or “We all shared different ways to solve the same problem.” I wanted to take a moment to explain what Number Talks are, why we’re using them at EAB, and how they fit into a well-rounded math program.

A Number Talk is a short, focused conversation about a math problem that students solve mentally. Math educator Sherry Parrish describes Number Talks as five- to fifteen-minute classroom discussions built around carefully chosen computation problems that are solved without pencil and paper. During a Number Talk, the teacher poses a problem, gives students quiet time to think, and students signal (often with a discreet thumbs-up or fingers on their chest) when they’ve found an answer or more than one strategy. Then the class talks through different methods together, with the teacher recording students’ thinking on the board.

At EAB, Lower School teachers incorporate Number Talks regularly throughout the week. In the early grades, this might involve dot patterns or simple addition and subtraction problems; in the older grades, students might work with larger numbers, multiplication, or fractions, with an emphasis on explaining how they thought about the problem, not just what the answer is.

One of the main goals of Number Talks is to build number sense, students’ intuitive feel for how numbers work and relate to each other. Number sense includes being able to take numbers apart, recombine them in flexible ways, and choose strategies that make a problem easier to handle mentally. Research suggests that students with strong number sense tend to be more successful in math overall because they aren’t tied to just one memorized rule; they can reason their way through new situations.

Jo Boaler, a well-known mathematics educator at Stanford, has called Number Talks “the best pedagogical method I know for developing number sense and helping students see the flexible and conceptual nature of math.” This flexible thinking is exactly what we want for our students: instead of seeing math as a fixed set of steps, they begin to see it as a connected, sense-making activity where their ideas matter.

Number Talks also support something else that’s very important to us at EAB: mathematical communication. When students explain their reasoning, listen to others, and ask questions like, “Why does that work?” or “How did you see it?” they are engaging in meaningful mathematical discourse. Organizations such as the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) highlight this kind of discussion as a key teaching practice because it helps students clarify their understanding and build confidence.

Number Talks are just one part of our math program.  They don’t replace rich problem-solving, hands-on activities, or practice with important skills. Instead, they give students frequent, low-risk opportunities to think out loud, to try strategies, and to see that there is often more than one way to solve a problem.

If your child mentions a Number Talk at home, you might ask them, “What problem did you work on today?” or “What was one way someone solved it?” Those are the kinds of questions we’re asking in class, and they reflect the heart of what we’re aiming for: a math experience where thinking, reasoning, and sharing ideas are front and center.