Children\'s Mathematics

Figure 7.1 Alison – counting continuously

As Figure 7.2a shows, subtraction requires more steps than addition. However,

we have never found that this inhibited children in representing what they had

done. If anything, the physical action of ‘taking away’ seems to be quite

straightforward in terms of representation, and children use a variety of creative

means to do so.

Alice, 4:11, has drawn the total number of flowers in the two sets as a continuous

count and then crossed out those she was subtracting. Louisa, 5:4, chose to use

the computer to draw six grapes and then used the computer ‘rubber’ to remove

three (see Figure 7.2b).

In Figure 7.1, Alison, 5:1 was counting the children in her group and each child’s

toys, to work out the total for who would be eating at the class’s ‘breakfast café’.

She counted both children and toys, representing these as a string of numerals.

When self-checking she found that she had written too many numerals and put

brackets round those she did not need.The final number in her count

represented the total.The hand she drew may denote addition, though we cannot

be sure in this instance.

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