CONTEMPORARY EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY 22, 495506 (1997)

ARTICLE NO. EP970947

Training in Place-Value Concepts Improves

Childrens Addition Skills
Connie Suk-Han Ho and Fanny Sim-Fong Cheng
Chinese University of Hong Kong
The present study examined whether childrens variation in arithmetic performance
was related to differences in their understanding of place-value. Training in place-value
concepts was provided to a group of Chinese children who were poor in arithmetic.
Their performance before and after the training was compared to that of the children
in two control groups. The results showed that there were reliable connections between
place-value understanding and addition and subtraction skills. Furthermore, training in
place-value concepts was found to be effective in enhancing the childrens place-
value understanding and addition skills. Implications for instructions in arithmetic were
discussed. q 1997 Academic Press

Children of different nations vary greatly in their mathematical skills.

Cross-national comparisons of mathematics achievement have consistently
shown great differences in favor of Asian students (e.g., Byrne, 1989; Geary,
Bow-Thomas, Fan, & Siegler, 1993; Husen, 1967; Miller & Stigler, 1987;
Stevenson, Lee, & Stigler, 1986). Asian children perform better than do
non-Asian children in counting tasks (e.g., Miller & Stigler, 1987), number
representation tasks (e.g., Miura, 1987; Miura, Kim, Chang, & Okamoto,
1988; Miura & Okamoto, 1989), as well as addition and subtraction tasks
(e.g., Geary et al., 1993).
National differences in mathematics performance have been explained in
terms of some sociocultural factors, such as parental expectations and effort
attributions (e.g., Hess, Chang, & McDevitt, 1987; Mordkowitz & Ginsburg,
1987; Stevenson et al., 1986, 1990; Stigler & Perry, 1988). However, these
factors fail to explain early national differences among preschool and early
primary school children at a time when social factors are less influential.
Factors that have been identified in past research studies as capable of
explaining early national differences in mathematics performance include
numerical language characteristics and instructional variations. In respect to
the former, some studies have found that number words (specifically pronunci-
ation rate) in a language can affect digit span (working memory capacity and/

The authors thank the students, teachers, parents, and headteacher of Ma On Shan Hay Nien
Primary School in Hong Kong for their kind participation and cooperation.
Address correspondence to Connie Suk-Han Ho, Department of Psychology, The Chinese
University of Hong Kong, Shatin, N.T., Hong Kong. E-mail: cshho@psy.cuhk.edu.hk.
495
0361-476X/97 $25.00
Copyright q 1997 by Academic Press
All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.

ab07$$0947 10-02-97 11:31:51 cepa AP: CEP

496 HO AND CHENG

or duration), which in turn affects the efficiency of mathematical operations

(e.g., Geary et al., 1993; Hoosain, 1982, 1984; Stigler, Lee, & Stevenson,
1986). Other studies have also demonstrated that the regularity of a number-
naming system can affect the cognitive representation of numbers and under-
standing of place-value concepts (e.g., Fuson & Kwon, 1991; Miller & Stigler,
1987; Miura et al., 1988; Miura, Okamoto, Kim, Chang, Steere, & Fayol,
1994; Miura, Okamoto, Kim, Steere, & Fayol, 1993). For instance, the number
12 corresponds directly to the underlying base-ten structure of the number
system when it is spoken as ten-two in Chinese but does not when it is
spoken as twelve in English.
Regarding the instructional variations, the initial arithmetical learning
activities in which Chinese children engage at home and at school appear
to support the development of composite multi-unit numerical conceptions
(Yang & Cobb, in press). Such learning activities usually involve the em-
phasis on a decade as a counting unit, the use of the up-over-ten method
in addition (i.e., one addend is partitioned into the number that makes ten
with the other addend and the left-over number, e.g., eight plus seven is
treated as eight and two makes ten and then ten plus the left-over five),
and the use of the subtract-from-ten method in subtraction (i.e., the
number being subtracted is taken from ten and the resulting difference is
added to the amount over ten, e.g., ten-three minus six is treated as six
subtracted from ten and three). On the other hand, American children are
initially encouraged to construct unitary number concepts based on counting
by ones (e.g., Fuson & Kwon, 1991, 1992; Yang & Cobb, in press). These
learning activities seem to affect childrens conception and representation
of numbers.
If these particular language characteristics and learning activities of
Asian children make it easier for them than for their non-Asian counterparts
to understand the place-value concepts that result in better arithmetic
achievement, it could be argued that poor understanding of place-value
concepts will lead to poor arithmetic performance. Since no study has been
conducted to systematically investigate the connection between place-value
understanding and arithmetic performance, the present study was conducted
to fill this gap.
The aims of the present study were (a) to test whether there was a
relationship between place-value understanding on the one hand, and addi-
tion and subtraction skills on the other; and (b) to examine whether training
in place-value concepts would help those who were poor in arithmetic. In
this study, training in place-value concepts was provided to a group of
Chinese children who were poor in arithmetic. The effectiveness of training
on arithmetic skills was examined by comparing the childrens arithmetic
performance before and after the training and also with those who did not
receive any training.

ab07$$0947 10-02-97 11:31:51 cepa AP: CEP

 PLACE-VALUE UNDERSTANDING 497

TABLE 1
AGE, IQ SCORES, AND GENDER RATIO OF THE THREE GROUPS

Good Arithmetic Poor Arithmetic

Training Group Control Group Control Group
(n 15) (n 15) (n 15)

Age 7.03 (0.25) 7.04 (0.25) 7.03 (0.25)

IQ 102.3 (14.19) 110.2 (9.40) 102.2 (9.17)
Sex:
Male 8 7 8
Female 7 8 7

METHOD
Participants
Initially, 69 Chinese first-graders with a mean age of 7.02 years (SD .24) and mean IQ of
106.1 (SD 12.6) were selected from the Ma On Shan Hay Nien Primary School in Hong Kong.
They were assessed on intelligence, place-value understanding, and addition and subtraction skills
(details of these tasks will be described in the next section). Forty-five of them were found to
be either consistently above average or consistently below average in their performance in all
the arithmetic tasks. They were selected and divided into three groups for further examination.
The remaining 24 children, whose performance was average or was not consistent in all the
arithmetic tasks, were excluded from the rest of the study.
Of the 45 selected children, 15 were above-average performers and they formed the Good
Arithmetic Control Group. The remaining 30 were below-average performers. They were first
paired up based on similarity in their performance in the arithmetic tasks and were then divided
into two matched groups (the poor arithmetic performance groups), each comprising one child
from each of the 15 pairs. All the three groups were matched in age, IQ scores, and gender ratio
(see Table 1). An analysis of variance showed that there were no significant differences among
the three groups in age, F(2,42) 0.01, p .99, or IQ, F(2,42) 2.53, p .09. Training in
place-value concepts was administered to only one of the two poor arithmetic performance groups
(the Training Group). In other words, there were two control groups that did not receive any
training, namely, the Good Arithmetic Control Group and the remaining poor arithmetic perfor-
mance group (the Poor Arithmetic Control Group).

Materials and Procedures

Pretraining assessment. Four tasks were administered to the 69 children before training was given
to the Training Group. The tasks were an IQ test, a place-value understanding task, an addition task,
and a subtraction task. The arithmetic tasks were constructed based on local school curricula in
mathematics at Grade-1 level and were refined after a series of pilot studies. The reason for conducting
the pretraining assessment was to establish a baseline for comparison with posttraining performance.
Ravens standard progressive matrices. The short form of Ravens Standard Progressive
Matrices with a local norm was administered as a measure of intelligence. The short form
consisted of three sets (A, B, and C) of the original materials, each with 12 items arranged in
ascending order of difficulty. The children were required to choose a pattern to fill in the missing
part of a matrix. They did this test in class at their own pace.
Place-value understanding. In designing this task, past research in place-value understanding
(e.g., Fuson & Briars, 1990; Fuson & Kwon, 1991; Sinclair, Garin, & Tieche-Christinat, 1992)

ab07$$0947 10-02-97 11:31:51 cepa AP: CEP

498 HO AND CHENG

and local school curricula in mathematics were taken into consideration. This task consisted of
five parts of four questions each. In Part 1, the children were required to write numerals to
represent the quantity of different combinations of ten and one boxes and to indicate which
numeral should be at the unit position and which at the ten position. They were asked to rewrite
addition formulae from horizontal to vertical format, and to draw ten and/or unit boxes to
represent written numerals in Parts 2 and 3, respectively. They also needed to complete addition
formulae which required understanding that X-ten-Y equals X-ten plus Y (e.g., 92 _ / 2), and
to increase some three-digit and four-digit numbers by one in Parts 4 and 5, respectively. As
some of the written instructions were too difficult for the children, they did this task together in
class under the verbal guidance of the experimenter. One point was given for each question
answered correctly in Parts 2, 4, and 5 of this task. Since there were two subparts in each
question of Parts 1 and 3, one point was given for each subpart of a question answered correctly.
Addition. This task consisted of 20 sums presented in vertical format on an answer sheet. Four
of them were two-digit plus one-digit problems, six were two-digit plus two-digit problems, six
were three-digit plus one-digit problems, and the remaining four were three-digit plus two-digit
ones. Half of them involved carrying and half did not. The children did the task in class at their
own pace. One point was given for each sum done correctly.
Subtraction. This task consisted of 20 subtraction problems presented in vertical format on
an answer sheet. Six of them were two-digit minus one-digit problems, four were two-digit
minus two-digit problems, six were three-digit minus one-digit problems, and the remaining four
were three-digit minus two-digit ones. Half of them required borrowing and half did not. The
children did the task in class at their own pace. One point was given for each problem done
correctly.

Training in Place-Value Concepts

Two weeks after the pretraining assessment, five weekly 1-h training sessions were adminis-
tered to the Training Group by two female experimenters after school hours. Each training session
involved direct instructions, demonstrations, games, classwork, and homework. Since counting
skills were fundamental to developing further arithmetic skills, training in Session 1 focused on
refreshing and consolidating the childrens oral and object counting skills through simple counting
exercises (e.g., counting and reporting the quantity of a set of blocks). In Session 2, the children
were presented with some straws as counting objects. They were asked to count and tie 10 straws
into a bundle, and to put 10 bundles of straws into a glass. When counting the straws in bundles,
they counted in tens, and when counting the straws in glasses, they counted in hundreds. After
counting and grouping the straws, the children were given more straws to put into their sets.
They were then asked to give away some straws. In this process of adding and taking away
straws, the children might need to regroup the additional straws and the existing straws into
bundles and glasses, or to untie an existing bundle in order to have enough single straws to give
away. Through these activities of grouping, regrouping, and trading, the children gradually
understood that 10 units of 1 can be exchanged for 1 unit of 10 and vice versa. When regrouping
and trading concepts were established, the children were asked to use written numerals to indicate
the quantity of objects counted in Session 3. Straws and number cards were used for training
activities in this session. Some of the cards had a decade number (i.e., 10, 20, . . . ,
80, or 90) written on them while a unit number (i.e., 1, 2, . . . , 8, or 9)
was written on others. As an example, on one occasion of the training activities, the children
were first given two bundles of straws and three single straws, and were then asked to use the
number cards to show the quantity of the straws they got in bundles and in single units. After
counting the number of straws, the children should be able to pick out the card with 20 to
represent the quantity of two bundles, and to select another card with 3 to represent the
quantity of three single straws. The trainers then demonstrated to the children that when we put
the 3 card over the 20 card at the unit position, we got a new number, 23. With

ab07$$0947 10-02-97 11:31:51 cepa AP: CEP

 PLACE-VALUE UNDERSTANDING 499

TABLE 2
MEAN SCORES, STANDARD DEVIATIONS, AND SPEARMAN BROWN RELIABILITY COEFFICIENTS
IN THE ARITHMETIC TASKS FOR THE WHOLE SAMPLE (n 69)

Maximum Mean score Reliability

Task score (SD) coefficient

Place-value understanding 28 16.49 (6.44) .94

Addition 20 10.77 (5.13) .93
Subtraction 20 7.52 (5.08) .94

explanation, this activity helped the children to understand that 23 was twenty and three. The
positional value of numbers was further elaborated by other games and activities. This positional
value concept was extended to three-digit numbers in Session 4. Session 5, the last session,
mainly involved revision and consolidation of place-value concepts learned in previous sessions.

Posttraining Assessment
Three arithmetic tasks were administered to the selected 45 children in the three groups as
described above the week after the last training session. The tasks were addition, subtraction,
and place-value understanding, which were exactly the same as those employed in the pretraining
assessment.

RESULTS
Mean Scores and Reliability
Table 2 shows the 69 childrens mean scores, standard deviations, and
SpearmanBrown oddeven split-half reliability coefficients of the three
arithmetic tasks in the pre-training assessment. The reliability of all the tasks
was very good (all reliability coefficients .92).
Correlation
Table 3 shows the Pearson correlation coefficients among the test scores
for the 69 children in the first assessment. IQ scores were found to correlate
significantly with addition [r(67) .34, p .01] and marginally significantly
with subtraction [r(67) .24, p .051]. The correlations among addition,
subtraction, and place-value understanding were significant [all rs(67) .45,
all ps .001], and these correlations were still significant even after control-
ling for the effects of IQ [see Table 3, all rs(66) .43, all ps .001]. This
suggests that there is a significant relationship between place-value under-
standing and addition and subtraction skills.
Intragroup Pre- and Posttraining Comparisons
Table 4 shows the performance of the three groups in place-value under-
standing, addition, and subtraction before and after training in place-value
concepts was given to the Training Group. There were significant differences

ab07$$0947 10-02-97 11:31:51 cepa AP: CEP

500 HO AND CHENG

TABLE 3
ZERO-ORDER CORRELATION COEFFICIENTS AMONG IQ SCORE AND THE ARITHMETIC SCORES
AND PARTIAL CORRELATION COEFFICIENTS CONTROLLING FOR IQ AMONG THE ARITHMETIC SCORES
(FIGURES IN BRACKETS) FOR THE WHOLE SAMPLE (n 69)

PVU ADD SUB

IQ (IQ) .21 .34** .24#

Place-value understanding (PVU) .54*** .46***
(.51***) (.43***)
Addition (ADD) .77***
(.76***)
Substraction (SUB)

#
p .051.
**p .01.
***p .001.

among the three groups in all the arithmetic tasks before training in addition
[F(2,42) 17.98, p .001], in subtraction [F(2,42) 22.88, p .001], and
in place-value understanding [F(2,42) 30.90, p .001]. The Tukeya test
(Tukey, 1953) showed that the Good Arithmetic Control Group performed
significantly better than the other two groups in all the arithmetic tasks (q
2.98 in addition, q 2.69 in subtraction, q 2.97 in place-value understand-
ing, all ps .05) while the two poor arithmetic performance groups did not
differ significantly in any of these arithmetic tasks.
Training group. The children in the Training Group showed tremendous
improvement in performance in the arithmetic tasks, especially in place-
value understanding and addition, after receiving training. The childrens
posttraining performance was significantly higher than their pretraining per-
formance in place-value understanding [F(1,14) 235.47, p .001] and in
addition [F(1,14) 6.67, p .05], but not in subtraction [F(1,14) 3.28,
p .09]. These results indicate that the training in place-value concepts had
directly boosted the Training Group childrens place-value understanding and
had indirectly improved their addition skills.
Good arithmetic control group. The Good Arithmetic Control Group also
showed some improvement in performance in the arithmetic tasks. However,
the childrens performance in the second assessment was significantly higher
than in the first assessment only in addition [F(1,14) 10.69, p .001],
not in place-value understanding or subtraction. The results imply that these
children improved spontaneously in addition skills under normal class instruc-
tion without any special training. However, it should be borne in mind that
the small improvement of this group in place-value understanding could be
partly due to the fact that these children were fairly good to begin with in
the place-value task (84.5%) leaving little room for improvement.

ab07$$0947 10-02-97 11:31:51 cepa AP: CEP

ab07$$0947
TABLE 4
ARITHMETIC PERFORMANCE OF THE THREE GROUPS IN PRE- AND POSTTRAINING ASSESSMENT

Training Group Good Arithmetic Control Group Poor Arithmetic Control Group
(n 15) (n 15) (n 15)

10-02-97 11:31:51
% of % of % of
Task (maximum score) Pre Post improvement Pre Post improvement Pre Post improvement

cepa
Place-value understanding (28) 12.07 25.53 212.18 23.67 25.87 10.28 15.07 15.27 2.76
(4.80) (3.18) (414.55) (2.85) (3.14) (18.43) (4.65) (6.24) (29.04)
Addition (20) 7.80 11.80 112.62 16.13 18.40 15.67 8.53 9.67 27.95
(4.90) (5.29) (175.30) (3.18) (2.38) (19.65) (4.37) (3.31) (60.76)

AP: CEP
Subtraction (20) 4.53 6.53 80.50 13.13 15.27 21.27 5.53 6.60 72.37
PLACE-VALUE UNDERSTANDING

(3.44) (4.79) (168.25) (3.68) (3.61) (36.23) (4.26) (3.92) (164.23)

Note. The numbers in brackets are the standard deviations.

501
502 HO AND CHENG

Poor arithmetic control group. In contrast to the performance of the former

two groups, the Poor Arithmetic Control Group showed no significant im-
provement in any of the arithmetic tasks in the 2-month period under normal
class instruction.
Intergroup Comparisons
Rates of improvement. In order to facilitate intergroup comparisons on the
rates of improvement in arithmetic, and to evaluate the effectiveness and
impact of the training, percentage of improvement in each arithmetic task
was calculated as below and is shown in Table 4:

(Posttraining performance 0 Pretraining performance)

1 100%
Pretraining performance

The percentages of improvement in place-value understanding and in addi-

tion for the Training Group were significantly higher than those for the two
control groups, while the two control groups did not differ significantly in
any of these tasks [place-value understanding: F(2,42) 3.67, p .05, q
169.82, p .05; addition: F(2,42) 3.60, p .05, q 76.17, p .05].
However, the three groups did not differ significantly in the percentage of
improvement in subtraction. In other words, the Training Group showed
greater improvement in place-value understanding and addition after training
in place-value concepts than did the two control groups.
Training group vs. good arithmetic control group. Initially, the Good Arith-
metic Control Group performed better in all the arithmetic tasks than the
Training Group. However, after the children in the Training Group had re-
ceived training in place-value concepts, they showed greater improvement in
place-value understanding and addition than did the children in the Good
Arithmetic Control Group. Results of ANOVAs showed that after training,
the Training Group had caught up with the level of performance of the high
performance group in place-value understanding [F(1,28) 0.08, p .775],
but not in addition [F(1,28) 19.38, p .001] or subtraction [F(1,28)
31.74, p .001]. These results show that children who are originally poor
in arithmetic can reach the level of a high performance group in place-value
understanding after only 5 weeks of training in place-value concepts.

DISCUSSION
The aim of the present study was to examine the connections between
place-value understanding and addition and subtraction skills. The place-value
understanding score was found to correlate significantly with the addition
score and the subtraction score even after the effects of IQ were controlled.
These results suggest that there is a reliable connection between place-value

ab07$$0947 10-02-97 11:31:51 cepa AP: CEP

 PLACE-VALUE UNDERSTANDING 503

understanding and addition and subtraction skills, and place-value understand-

ing may be a basic prerequisite for developing addition and subtraction skills.
If this is the case, training in place-value concepts will help those poor in
arithmetic. This is what has been established in the present study.
Children in the Training Group were initially poor in arithmetic skills.
After receiving training in place-value concepts for 5 weeks, they improved
significantly in both place-value understanding and addition skills. Their per-
formance in place-value understanding had even caught up with that of the
high arithmetic performance group. Furthermore, the Training Groups rates
of improvement in place-value understanding and addition were significantly
greater than those of the two control groups. These results clearly indicate
the effectiveness of the training program in boosting the childrens place-
value understanding, which in turn helps the development of addition skills.
As such, place-value understanding can be considered an important prerequi-
site for developing addition skills.
Educational Implications
It is noteworthy that the Poor Arithmetic Control Group did not show
significant improvement in any of the arithmetic tasks in 2 months under
normal class instruction but the Good Arithmetic Control Group did so at
least in addition. This implies that the performance gap between high and
low achievers will widen over time if no interventional assistance is given
to the low achievers. Since training in place-value concepts has been found
to be effective in helping those poor in arithmetic, teachers and parents may
spend more time in consolidating the place-value understanding of children
before they proceed to teach addition or subtraction skills. Past studies have
shown that teaching approaches that emphasize constructing relationships
between place-value concepts and computational strategies are better than
conventional textbook approaches in improving computational skills and
classroom participation (e.g., Hiebert & Wearne, 1992, 1993). This is consis-
tent with Nunes and Bryants (1996) suggestion that conceptual development
in arithmetic is more important than mastery of a list of procedures or facts.
This is especially the case for those cultures whose language characteristics
and/or learning activities do not encourage early development of place-value
understanding (e.g., Ho & Fuson, 1996; Yang & Cobb, in press). Thus, place-
value instruction would likely be of great benefit to English-speaking children
because they have greater difficulty than Asian children in mapping number
words onto the base-ten numerical representations (e.g., Miura et al., 1988,
1993, 1994). Fuson & Briars (1990) have provided concrete suggestions of
how to use base-ten blocks and digit cards to teach American children place-
value concepts. The following are some guiding principles suggested for
instruction in place-value concepts which have been developed in the process
of training the children in this study.

ab07$$0947 10-02-97 11:31:51 cepa AP: CEP

504 HO AND CHENG

Building Connections between Physical, Oral, and Written Representations

In order to master place-value concepts and apply them in arithmetic, it is
important to understand the connections between how quantities are repre-
sented in the physical world and how they are related to the ways in which
we speak and write numbers.
Physical manipulatives are often effective in helping children to develop
an understanding of how quantities are represented in the physical world.
In the present training study, proportional objects (i.e., objects with sizes
proportional to their quantities) were found to be useful in helping children
understand different quantities of numbers and hence place-value concepts.
For instance, children can begin by counting the number of straws orally and
tying 10 straws into a bundle. They can then put 10 bundles of straws into
a glass. As a result, they can count tens or hundreds as units by counting the
number of bundles or the number of glasses. These kinds of learning activities
encourage children to organize and represent quantities in a different way
multiunit rather than unitary representationand help them to build a connec-
tion between physical and oral representations of quantities.
After establishing a connection between physical and oral representations,
it is essential to link this with the written format that children learn at school.
Baroody (1990) has put forward a similar suggestion of the importance of
linking physical models to written symbols in building multiunit understand-
ing. Written numerals can be placed by the physical manipulatives to represent
their quantities. Teachers may show children the fact that changing the posi-
tions of the numerals changes their values. For instance, the 2 in 4032 and
in 2403 represent completely different values. In the process of counting,
grouping, and trading, it is also important to highlight the reversibility of the
trading process. In other words, children should understand ten tens is one
hundred and one hundred is ten tens. This knowledge is especially useful
when children learn multidigit addition and multidigit subtraction that involve
carrying or borrowing.
It appears that the success of the present training program is partly attribut-
able to its emphasis on building connections between physical, oral, and
written representation of numbers. Although this approach has been adopted
by some local schools, its popularity still falls short of its significance.
Limitations of the Present Study
Short training period. The purpose of training in the present study was to
foster childrens place-value understanding, which in turn was expected to
help the children to develop addition and subtraction skills. As a result of
training in place-value concepts, the Training Group improved significantly
in place-value understanding and addition skills. However, they caught up
with the high achievers only in place-value understanding but not in addition.
This was probably because the children did not have sufficient time during

ab07$$0947 10-02-97 11:31:51 cepa AP: CEP

 PLACE-VALUE UNDERSTANDING 505

the short training period to assimilate their newly acquired place-value con-
cepts and apply them in addition. Nevertheless, there is a promising sign
that improving place-value understanding also improves addition skills. The
authors believe that the lag between the high and low achievers would have
been minimized if the training period had been lengthened.
Why training enhances addition but not subtraction skills. It is interesting
to note that the place-value understanding score was found to correlate sig-
nificantly with the subtraction score but training in place-value concepts did
not improve subtraction skills. This was probably because of the lack of
emphasis in the training program on the trading back concept which is im-
portant to subtraction. Although the reversibility of the trading process was
discussed when regrouping was taught to the children, much more emphasis
had been put on trading than on trading back. For instance, in the training
sessions, the children were given more practice in trading 10 unit-blocks for
1 ten-block than in trading 1 ten-block back for 10 unit-blocks. As trading
back was a useful concept in developing subtraction skills, especially those
involving borrowing, the neglect of this component in the training program
resulted in no significant improvement in subtraction skills. Therefore, more
studies are needed in the future to examine the relationship between place-
value understanding and subtraction skills.

REFERENCES

Baroody, A. J. (1990). How and when should place-value concepts and skills be taught? Journal
for Research in Mathematics Education, 21, 281286.
Byrne, G. (1989). U.S. Students flunk math, science. Science, 243, 729.
Fuson, K. C., & Briars, D. J. (1990). Using a base-ten blocks learning/teaching approach for
first- and second-grade place-value and multidigit addition and subtraction. Journal for
Research in Mathematics Education, 21, 180206.
Fuson, K. C., & Kwon, Y. (1991). Chinese based regular and European irregular systems of
number words: The disadvantages for English speaking children. In K. Durkin & B. Shire
(Eds.), Language in mathematical education: Research and practice (pp. 211226). Milton
Keynes, PA: Open University Press.
Fuson, K. C., & Kwon, Y. (1992). Korean childrens understanding of multidigit addition and
subtraction. Child Development, 63, 491506.
Geary, D. C., Bow-Thomas, C. C., Fan, L., & Siegler, R. S. (1993). Even before formal instruc-
tion, Chinese children outperform American children in mental addition. Cognitive Develop-
ment, 8, 517529.
Hess, R. D., Chang, C.-M., & McDevitt, T. M. (1987). Cultural variations in family beliefs about
childrens performance in mathematics: Comparison among Peoples Republic of China,
Chinese-American, and Caucasian-American families. Journal of Educational Psychology,
79, 179188.
Hiebert, J., & Wearne, D. (1992). Links between teaching and learning place value with under-
standing in first grade. Journal for Research in Mathematics Education, 23, 98122.
Hiebert, J., & Wearne, D. (1993). Instructional tasks, classroom discourse, and students learning
in second-grade arithmetic. American Educational Research Journal, 30, 393425.
Ho, C. S.-H., & Fuson, K. (1996). Childrens knowledge of teens quantities as tens and ones:

ab07$$0947 10-02-97 11:31:51 cepa AP: CEP

506 HO AND CHENG

Comparisons of Chinese, British, and American kindergartners. Manuscript submitted for

publication.
Hoosain, R. (1982). Correlation between pronunciation speed and digit span size. Perceptual
and Motor Skills, 55, 1128.
Hoosain, R. (1984). Experiments on digit spans in the Chinese and English languages. In H. S. R.
Kao & R. Hoosain (Eds.), Psychological studies of the Chinese language (pp. 2338). Hong
Kong: Tai Dao Publishing.
Husen, T. (1967). International study of achievement in mathematics: A comparison of twelve
countries (Vol. 2). Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell.
Miller, K. F., & Stigler, J. W. (1987). Counting in Chinese: Cultural variation in a basic cognitive
skill. Cognitive Development, 2, 279305.
Miura, I. T. (1987). Mathematics achievement as a function of language. Journal of Educational
Psychology, 79, 7982.
Miura, I. T., Kim, C. C., Chang, C. M., & Okamoto, Y. (1988). Effects of language characteristics
on childrens cognitive representation of number: Cross-national comparisons. Child Devel-
opment, 59, 14451450.
Miura, I. T., & Okamoto, Y. (1989). Comparisons of U.S. and Japanese first graders cognitive
representation of number and understanding of the place value. Journal of Educational
Psychology, 81, 109113.
Miura, I. T., Okamoto, Y., Kim, C. C., Chang, C. M., Steere, M., & Fayol, M. (1994). Compari-
sons of childrens cognitive representation of number: China, France, Japan, Korea, Sweden
and the United States. International Journal of Behavioural Development, 17(3), 401411.
Miura, I. T., Okamoto, Y., Kim, C. C., Steere, M., & Fayol, M. (1993). First graders cognitive
representation of number and understanding of place value: Cross-national comparisons
France, Japan, Korea, Sweden, and the United States. Journal of Educational Psychology,
85(1), 2430.
Mordkowitz, E. R., & Ginsburg, H. P. (1987). Early academic socialization of successful Asian
American college students. Quarterly Newsletter of the Laboratory for Comparative Human
Cognition, 9, 8591.
Nunes, T., & Bryant, P. (1996). Children doing mathematics. Oxford: Blackwell.
Sinclair, A., Carin, A., & Tieche-Christinat, C. (1992). Constructing and understanding of place
value in numerical notation. European Journal of Psychology of Education, 7, 191207.
Stevenson, H. W., Lee, S. Y., Chen, C., Lummis, M., Stigler, J., Fan, L., & Ge, F. (1990).
Mathematics achievement of children in China and the United States. Child Development,
61, 10531066.
Stevenson, H. W., Lee, S. Y., & Stigler, J. W. (1986). Mathematics achievement of Chinese,
Japanese and American children. Science, 231, 693699.
Stigler, J. W., Lee, S. Y., & Stevenson, H. W. (1986). Digit memory in Chinese and English:
Evidence for a temporary limited store. Cognition, 23, 120.
Stigler, J. W., & Perry, M. (1988). Mathematics learning in Japanese, Chinese, and American
classrooms. In G. B. Saxe & M. Gearhart (Eds.), Childrens mathematics (pp. 2754). San
Francisco: JosseyBass.
Tukey, J. W. (1953). The problem of multiple comparisons. Princeton: Princeton University
Press.
Yang, M. T. L., & Cobb, P. (in press). A cross-cultural investigation into the development of
place-value concepts of children in Taiwan and the United States. Educational Studies in
Mathematics.

ab07$$0947 10-02-97 11:31:51 cepa AP: CEP