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This article discusses the growing attention and research activity surrounding early grade mathematics (EGM) in South Africa and Malawi. The introduction of curriculum reforms and policy-linked interventions, such as the Teaching Mathematics for Understanding model and the Primary Teacher Education initiative, have led to increased research in this field. The article highlights the importance of foundational understandings of mathematics in addressing low performance in the subject. It also examines different approaches to EGM research, including large-scale interventions and projects that engage with the mathematics education literature base. The article concludes by emphasizing the need for ongoing attention to both larger-scale and smaller-scale intervention studies in order to improve mathematical outcomes. [Extracted from the article]

Ongoing concern about poor learner performance in mathematics has led to wide-ranging research on the subject, globally and in South Africa. Among the remedies identified is the reformation of pre-service teacher (PST) education programmes in a way that supports the acquisition of professional skills for pre-service teachers. Developing PSTs' reflective practice (RP) is a significant component of the desired reformation. Our research explored PSTs' RP development in the context of video-based mathematics lesson analysis. The aim was to contribute knowledge towards strengthening mathematics PST education and to report on whether increased benefits accrued from working with PSTs in small groups, guided by an experienced facilitator, as compared to whole-class lecturing. We draw on this extended analytic framework to compare two sets of reflections written by four selected PSTs based on viewing video recordings of their own teaching. One set was written in August 2018 after the PSTs completed three lecture sessions on RP in a Mathematics Methods course. The other was written in September 2019 after the four selected PSTs participated in three small-group, facilitator-guided sessions. The findings indicate some shifts towards higher-level reflections in the latter set, although only two of the four PSTs reflected at the highest level (reflectivity) following the small-group sessions. Implications for pre-service mathematics teacher education and refinement of frameworks for delineating levels of reflection are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]