Newmans Error

Analysis
From reading to processing: Using Newmans
5 prompts
The Australian educator Anne Newman
(1977) suggested five significant prompts
to help determine where errors may
occur in students attempts to solve
written problems.

Making
mistakes
Students can make mistakes in answering
numeracy questions for different reasons.
Newmans research elaborated the
different hurdles in answering a
contextual word problem that can cause
students to stumble. Perhaps the two
hurdles currently best known by teachers
are reading and comprehension.

The
hurdles
Newman identified that students may have
difficulty in
READING
reading the words,
understanding what they have read,
COMPREHENSION
transforming what they have read so as to be
TRANSFORMATION
able to form a course of
action,
following through on procedures, PROCESS SKILLS
encoding the result of a procedure to answer the
question.
ENCODING

Food for
thought

Research carried out in Australia and

Southeast Asia suggests that about 60%
of students errors in responding to
written numeracy questions occur
before students reach the process skills
level.
In contrast, most remediation
programs focus solely on the
process skills.

1. Reading

Newmans Prompts
Overview

Can students read the words of the problem?

Read the question twice. Circle important information. If you dont know a word leave it out or
substitute another word.

2. Comprehension

Can students understand the meaning of what is read?

Tell me what the question is asking you to find out.

3. Transformation

Can students determine a way to solve the problem?

What could you do to get the answer? Predict what the answer will look like. Do you need to draw
a picture to help you understand?

4. Process Skills

Can students engage in the mathematical process?

Try to answer the question and explain to me what you are thinking. Check your answer with
another strategy.

5. Encoding

Can students record and interpret their answer in relation to the problem?
Write down your answer. Does it make sense? Have you answered what was being asked?

Newmans Prompt 1 Reading

We need to read for meaning.

There are 26 sheep

and 10 goats on a ship.
How old is the captain?
76 out of 97 students did
one of the following:
26 + 10 = 36
26 10 = 16
26 x 10 = 260
26 10 = 26
Research Bernard Tola, CLIC DEC

Mr Left had 8 apples.

His wife was given 3
apples. How many
apples did Mr Left
have?
Many students responded by
doing 8 3 = 5 or 8 + 3 = 13
Why?
Some students do not have
effective problem solving
strategies and guess or
focus on a key word, e.g.

Please read the question to me.

If you dont know the word leave it out.
( highlight any word you do not know)

The problem

Many students cannot read the words correctly.

Students may not understand the meaning of

words.
Teaching strategies

Students can work with a reading partner.

A team approach to reading may help students

overcome this difficulty.

Have mathematics word charts displayed in the

classroom.

Newmans Prompt 2 Comprehension

Ensure the students
understand the
vocabulary
Familiarise students
with the text features
Teach students how to
identify and use key
mathematical
language

Use known literacy

strategies such as:
literal (here)
reading ON the lines

interpretive (hidden)
reading BETWEEN the lines

inferential (head)
reading BEYOND the lines

2. Tell me what the question is asking

you to do.
Most students can find and underline
the question.
This does not mean that they
understand the question.

Comprehension - Super Six

Strategies

Comprehension strategies are the cognitive and metacognitive

strategies readers use to accomplish the goal of
comprehension.
Comprehension strategies are interrelated and will rarely be
used in isolation.
The six key strategies are:
Making connections
Predicting
Questioning
Monitoring
Visualising
Summarising

Six metacognitive comprehension

strategies
Making Connections

Learners make personal connections from the text with:

something in their own life (text to self)
another text (text to text)
something occurring in the world (text to world).

What do I already know about the problem?

Have I done similar problems before?

Six metacognitive comprehension

strategies
Predicting
Learners use information from graphics, text and experiences to
anticipate what will be read/viewed/heard and to actively adjust
comprehension while reading/viewing/listening.

What operation is the problem asking me to do?

Will my answer be bigger or smaller than the
numbers in the problem? Why/ why not?
What words or visuals do I expect to see in this
problem?
Were my predictions accurate? Why/ why not?

Six metacognitive comprehension

strategies
Questioning
Learners pose and answer questions that clarify meaning and
promote deeper understanding of the text. Questions can be
generated by the learner, a peer or the teacher.

What information in the problem helps me

know what to do?
When you read the problem did it remind
you of anything you know about or have
done before?

Six metacognitive comprehension

strategies
Monitoring
Learners stop and think about the text and know what to do
when meaning is disrupted

Is the problem making sense?

Do I need to re-read/view/listen to the
problem?
What can help me fill in the missing
information?

Six metacognitive comprehension

strategies
Visualising
Learners create a mental image from a text read/viewed/heard.
Visualising brings the text to life, engages the imagination and
uses
all of the senses.

How can I represent this problem visually?

Can I describe the visual I have made for the
problem?
How did the visuals help me understand the
problem?

Six metacognitive comprehension

strategies
Summarising
Learners identify and accumulate the most important ideas
and
restate them in their own words

What are the main ideas and significant

details in the problem?
If you were to tell another person how you
solved the problem, what would you tell
them?
What information will help you solve the
problem?

Newmans Prompt 3 Transformation

To overcome this hurdle children need to:
Construct a simple visual representation of the problem
eg. teach them to draw a Tape Diagram as a thinking tool

Have the problem modelled several ways, as good

comprehension of mathematical texts aids transformation
Write own problems builds familiarity of features of word
problems
Have distractors in problems so they are forced to explore
a range of problem solving strategies
Have text altered for different operations and have students
identify key words and clues that help select operations

3. Tell me how you are going to

find the answer.
At this point the function of understanding takes over
from the function of reading.
The link between comprehension and transformation is
very strong and may require the student to go through
several cycles of asking the question and trying to find
ways to find the answer.
The problem
The density of mathematical language. There is a lot
packed
into a small number of words.
Teaching strategies
Read the first sentence. What does it mean? What do you
know?
Make mindmaps or charts to assist students develop the
language of mathematics.

Whats the problem with word

problems?
What we want students to think about is how the
numbers in a problem relate to each other.
To achieve this we often encourage students to
draw a diagram.
Tape diagrams can be used to provide a common
framework in using diagrams as thinking tools.
A tape diagram offers students a thinking
tool to visually represent a mathematical
problem and transform the words into an
appropriate numerical operation.

Teaching Transformation Tape Diagrams

To get to work, I travelled on the train for 14
minutes, then I caught a bus which took half an
hour.
Finally I walked for 9 minutes. How long did it
take me to get to work?
14 minutes

Half an hour

53 minutes

9 minutes

Using tape diagrams

There were some oranges in a box.
Because we bought 14 more oranges,
there are 21 oranges in the box altogether.
How many oranges were in the box at first?
21 oranges altogether

Number of
oranges at first

14 more oranges
were bought

+ 14 =
21
or
= 21
14

Newmans Prompt 4 Processing

Count Me In Too Resources

DENS Books
Counting On
Sample Units of Work
Talking about Patterns and Algebra
Red Dragonfly Maths
Fractions Pikelets and Lamingtons
Programming support website
Reciprocal Numeracy

These programs and strategies help us teach

processes with a focus on mental computation and
problem solving.

4. Show me what to do to get the answer.

Tell me what you are doing as you work.
The problem
Students can sometimes find or guess the
correct answer without understanding the
problem. They can also use an incorrect or
incomplete procedure.
Teaching strategies
Ask What do you need to know to be able to
work out the answer?
Make lists or diagrams linking words that are
associated with a process.

Newmans Prompt 5 Encoding

Does it make sense?
Does it answer what the question is asking?
Think of ways of recording the answer.
Have you used the correct units?

5. Now write down the answer to

the question
The problem
Students often forget the question,
especially in measurement questions
and do not answer all of the question
or answer using
an incorrect unit.
Teaching strategies

Have students reread the question

and
compare it with their answers.

The 5 questions RECAP

These
can be used to diagnose where the
problem lies

1.Read the question to me.

2.What is the question asking
you to find out?
3.What method did (could) you
use?
4.Try doing it and as you are
doing it tell me what you are
thinking.

NEWMANS ERROR ANALYSIS

STAGE 2 ASSESSMENTS
Kate has 96 pencils.
Each box of pencils
holds 10 pencils. How
many full boxes of
pencils can Kate make?

If pencils come in boxes

of 15, how many pencils
are in 20 boxes?

READING

COMPREHENSIO
N

TRANSFORMATI
ON

PROCESS

ENCODING

No Problems

STAGE 3
ASSESSMENTS
The first international cricket
team to tour England was an
Aboriginal team. The team won
14 matches, drew 19 matches
and lost 14 matches.
How many matches were
played?
Natalie paddled 402 km of the
Murray River in her canoe over
6 days. She paddled the same
distance each day.
How far did Natalie paddle
each day?

SNAP 2006
36 % and 14 % ATSI correct

Teaching Transformation
with Newmans Prompts
another example using a
Tape Diagram

Newmans method in the

classroom
In using Newmans error analysis in
the classroom, it is recommended
that you always go at least one step
past where the first error occurs.

Want to find out more

about NEA?
http://www.curriculumsupport.education.ns
w.gov.au/primary/mathematics/numeracy/new
man/index.htm
http://www.curriculumsupport.education.ns
w.gov.au/secondary/mathematics/numeracy/n
ewman/index.htm