A new look for the hundreds chart

For many years the hundreds chart has been used in a variety of ways to help develop mathematical ideas with children—it is quite possible that many children formulate their initial ideas about number through experiences with the chart. The typical hundreds chart, however, shows numerals going downward as they go “up” in number value. This causes a directional conflict in the minds of some children; it would seem that a different arrangement of the chart could help overcome this conflict. Rather than starting in the upper left hand corner and progressing to the lower right, the chart could originate in the lower left hand corner and terminate in the upper right as illustrated in figure 1. In this arrangement, number values increase as we progress “upward” through the chart.