Children\'s Mathematics

All of the eight children in this group understood what they had done, could

explain their marks and all had the correct answer. Because they had chosen their

own written method, what they had done made sense to them. Only one child had

made use of the standard ‘+’ symbol but he was able to explain ‘and you count them

all together’, which as a method of addition is common at this stage. No child had

used the standard equals sign.

Figure 10.8a, b and c Brendon, Scarlett and Alice (following direct teacher-modelling)

Catherine had referred to ‘shapes’ when we’d discussed what might be helpful.

She drew six squares and separated them with a vertical line into two sets of two

and four to represent the bears she was adding.

Connor and Jake had drawn the bears. Connor used the word ‘and’ between the

two sets then wrote ‘6 all together’ beneath his drawing. Jake used the ‘+’ symbol

between the two sets of bears and then wrote the numbers ‘2’ and ‘4’ beneath

each set, finally writing ‘6’ beneath his drawing.

William had worked it out mentally, writing ‘2 add 4 is 6’.

Darrel used tallies to represent the bears, writing ‘II III and tez zixs all to gev’(‘ 2

3 and there’s six all together’).

Developing children’s written methods 209

10.8a Brendon

10.8b Scarlett 10.8c Alice

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