Reviewed is research regarding multidigit addition and subtraction which may be used to question the organization and placement of topics in curriculum materials. Discussed are issues surrounding multidigit addition and subtraction, and the linguistic and cultural disadvantages in constructing units of 10 experienced by children in the United…

Investigated whether children who reflected the structure of word problems with their concrete models were successful in learning to symbolically represent problems with structure-based open number sentences. Forty-five first graders were taught to write canonical and noncanonical open number sentences. (Author/YP)

Suggested that strategy choices for solving addition problems were related to numerical and spatial ability domains, while the speed of executing the component process of fact retrieval was related to arithmetic ability only. Findings supported the convergent validity of the strategy choice model and its discriminant validity. (RH)

Analyzes error patterns of kindergartners' mental addition task. Eight weeks of computational practice affected the errors of unpracticed combinations on a retest. Seven of 10 children mastered previously unknown combinations involving zero by learning a relationship rather than the practice and memorization of individual facts. (Author/YP)

Discusses developmentally appropriate activities for teaching counting skills for kindergarten and early first-grade programs. Describes four activities: (1) counting on; (2) counting back; (3) auditory patterning; and (4) visual patterning based on the 10-frame. (YP)

Third- and fourth-grade students (n=401) were taught problem solving through structure-plus-writing, heuristics, or no explicit instruction. The structure-plus-writing group outperformed the heuristics group, and the gap widened 10 weeks after the treatment. Includes sample student-authored problems. (MKR)

Chinese and American kindergarten children were given a test of addition skills, a numerical memory span measure, and an addition strategy assessment. When unable to retrieve an addition fact from memory, Chinese children counted verbally, whereas American children used finger counting or guessed. This difference appeared to be related to a…

Coordinates anthropological and cognitive perspectives on one child's learning of the standard addition algorithm in second and third grade. Analysis showed that the student abandoned his self-generated computational algorithms in favor of less understood conventional procedures. (25 references) (Author/MKR)

Provides the instructions to build a homemade calculator that can be used as a reinforcement device to assist primary students in memorizing their addition facts. (MDH)

Chapters 5 through 10 of a 14-chapter, three-volume work on arithmetical applications are contained in this document. Each chapter details the "use classes" of one broad arithmetical concept. (A "use class" of a concept is a set of examples of real world uses of the concept which share a common structure). Each chapter…

This manual is used with MATHBOXES, a computer program written for Apple II microcomputers to help children relate formal mathematical symbols for representing simple word problems to the informal strategies using physical objects that they naturally use to solve them. There is a substantial body of research that documents that young children are…

This study documented the spontaneously derived strategies that children use which may play a key role in the transition from counting to recall of number facts. For these strategies, the child uses a small set of known number facts to derive the solution to unknown number facts. How training in the use of derived strategies influences the…

Eight sixth-grade students received individualized instruction on the addition and subtraction of fractions in a one-to-one setting for 6 weeks. Instruction was specifically designed to build upon the student's prior knowledge of fractions. It was determined that all students possessed a rich store of prior knowledge about parts of wholes in real…

Reported are data from the first individual interview conducted in 1978 as part of a 3-year study on addition and subtraction using verbal problem solving. The research program is attempting to relate pupil performance on selected arithmetic skills to pupil cognitive processes, instructional materials, and teachers' classroom behaviors. From three…

Reported are data from the second individual interview conducted in 1979 as part of a 3-year study on addition and subtraction using verbal problem solving. From three schools in Wisconsin that used the Developing Mathematical Processes program, l50 first-grade children were individually administered six problem types (two solvable by addition and…