One day my students played a game called What Comes Next? in which one
student builds a linear pattern with twelve color tiles or other manipulatives
(Russell et al. 2008n). Then the student covers up the last half of the pattern with
cups, and her partner has to tell what comes next (see Figure 2–1).
I knew that one of the pairs, Rashid and Chad, would need my support. This
was Rashid’s second year in kindergarten. He was born very prematurely and
showed developmental delays in language and mathematics. Children tended
not to want to be his partner because he struggled somuch. Rashid needed to de-
velop foundational skills so that he could be successful with patterns. Identifying
attributes is a critical skill as students pay attention to which attribute is repeat-
ing in a pattern. For example, at the beginning of the year, Rashid could only
name color and shapes of blocks as attributes of a set of pattern blocks. Through
extended practice, he was able to come up with additional attributes with which
to sort a set of objects, such as size, texture, surface features (like holes/no holes
on buttons), or thickness (when using attribute blocks).
Rashid was not consistently successful making simple patterns, such as red,
green, red, green (AB, AB), but because so many of the other children were moving
on to more complex patterns, he really wanted to try and do what his partner was
trying. On this particular day, Rashid had made a tile train that started blue, yellow,
red, yellow and then did not repeat—it was random. His partner, Chad, became very
frustrated because he could not guess what came next. This discussion followed.
TEACHER: Chad, what could you say to Rashid about his pattern?
CHAD: It really isn’t a pattern.MAKINGMATHEMATICSEXPLICITLast half is covered up with
individual opaque paper cupsWhat Comes Next?Cardstock “path” to help with organizationFigure 2–1.