The Parts and Wholes of Arithmetic Story Problems: Developing Knowledge in the Preschool Years
- 1 September 1995
- journal article
- Published by Taylor & Francis in Cognition and Instruction
- Vol. 13 (3) , 469-477
- https://doi.org/10.1207/s1532690xci1303_5
Abstract
A study of 4- and 5-year-old children's arithmetic problem solving provided evidence for the early development of knowledge about part-whole relations. The study compared children's performance on initial-unknown and final-unknown problems involving the addition or subtraction of a single item. Four-year-olds responded in a directionally appropriate way to the final-unknown problems but not to the corresponding initial-unknown ones, supporting the idea that their problem solving is constrained by the temporal sequence of events in a story problem. By 5 years of age, children were able to give directionality appropriate responses to both the final-unknown and the initial-unknown problems.Keywords
This publication has 3 references indexed in Scilit:
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- An Integrated Model of Skill in Solving Elementary Word ProblemsCognition and Instruction, 1984