Piecing It Together

Many of the key concepts that students need to know about area measurement are covered in the third-grade expectations detailed in the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics (CCSSM) (CCSSI 2010). However, making sense of area measurement is not always an easy task for students; it takes time. Researchers have found that young children often attend to length attributes when asked to measure area, or they are unsure of what exactly is meant by the word area (Lehrer, Jenkins, and Osana 1998). Consequently, students should have multiple and varied experiences over time to make sense of area measurement (Sarama and Clements 2009). Introductory experiences in the first or second grade may help build the foundation that students need to successfully tackle this topic in third grade.