Developing foundational number sense : Number line examples from Poland and Russia

For a variety of reasons children start school with differing number-related skills, leading to differences in later mathematics achievement. Such differences prompt the question, what number-related experiences are necessary if the first year of school is to prepare children appropriately for their learning of mathematics? In this paper we discuss the development of an eight dimensional framework, foundational number sense (FoNS), that characterises those learning experiences. We then demonstrate the framework's analytical efficacy by evaluating episodes from two sequences of lessons, one Polish and one Russian, focused on the use of the number line. The results show that the FoNS framework is cross-culturally sensitive, simply operationalised and analytically powerful.