Young Children’s Use of Digital Cameras to Represent Addition Story

Abstract

Learning mathematics is often challenging for students at all levels of education, including young children. To help students acquire the abstract mathematical concepts, teachers introduce representations to aid children in comprehending the concepts and solving mathematical problems. This study explored young children’s representations (aged 6 years old) in addition activities in their first term of school. Three children from the same classroom were selected as participants. Initially, a pre-test was administered. Next, children were introduced to the addition concept and were required to solve addition problems independently. Following the children’s success in employing multiple representations to solve the practice tasks, the final tasks were posed. Analysis of the children’s artefacts, in combination with their behaviours and informal interviews revealed insights into the children’s understanding of addition concepts. The study implicatesthat developing visual representationiscrucial in facilitating children’s understanding of mathematical concepts and assisting solution of problems.