Reply To: 3.1 – Progression Ah-ha’s and Wonders
In my experience working with different levels, the one I will focus on will be first grade, so the Early numbers and counting progression and the addition and subtraction progression are the areas I should go over and start working with students. I like to remember the content they were able to learn in kindergarten and connect it to the new knowledge. Applying new strategies for addition and subtraction shows me that students have different ways of solving and connecting content. There are students who need to draw pictures to find results, others use their fingers and others simply do a mental process. But if everyone likes to work with concrete material; grouping, putting or removing different objects, helps them to be able to visualize a result through the manipulation of different objects stimulates them to create a conceptual understanding of what is addition and subtraction.
By grouping different objects, students may be able to figure out that one number plus another equals another number plus another number. Sometimes children tend to think that, for example, 5 + 5 = 10, and that there is no other way to find the number 10. But when we show them another option, for example, 6 + 4 =10; they begin to understand that if we put different numbers together we can find the same results.
Now, when we start to use numbers greater than 10, we have the challenge that some students find it difficult to understand how to operate with them, so the decomposition of numbers is a strategy that allows them to simplify the largest number and be able to develop the exercises. more easily.