THE NOTION OF NUMBER SENSE IN RELATION TO NEGATIVE NUMBERS

Conceptual understanding of negative numbers includes development of number sense, however, what this involves in the extended number domain needs to be clarified. Number sense components previously identified for natural numbers are here explored in relation to negative numbers. Empirical data from interviews with sixth grade students show that a highly developed number sense for natural numbers does not necessarily imply a sufficient number sense for negative numbers, indicating that number sense issues need to be an explicit part of teaching negative numbers.