Background to the study
Mathematics is an important subject of study that is given much priority in school curricula worldwide. Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) opines that the universe cannot be read until we have learned the language and become familiar with the characters in which it is written. He postulates further that the universe is written in mathematical language, and that the letters are triangles, circles and other geometrical figures, without which means it will be humanly impossible to comprehend a single word. Without these, one is assumed to be wandering about in a dark labyrinth (Marcus, 2010). Mathematics is considered as one of the fundamental subjects of education due to the numerous benefits it provides to human life. It serves as a binding force among various branches of science, enhance critical thinking and problem solving skills, communication, and provides conceptual understanding of natural occurring phenomena through the use of numbers (Adebule & Kolawole, 2012).
Currently in our Ghanaian setting, primary mathematics education is governed by a prescribed mathematics curriculum which is presented in the form of syllabus for the various levels of primary school mathematics education. The curriculum provides detail prescription of what mathematical content to be taught at each level. It also
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Due to the high recognition of number in mathematics education, several scholars turn to perceive mathematics as a science of numbers and their operations (Griffin, 2004). Number is an umbrella term and is classified into several sets in accordance to properties that they possess in common. Number domains in Ghanaian primary school mathematics syllabus include: whole numbers, counting numbers, prime numbers, even numbers, odd numbers, and fractions (Ministry of Education,