Renton, Margaret; (1992) Primary School - Children's Strategies for Addition. Doctoral thesis (Ph.D), Institute of Education, University of London.

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Abstract

Children use a range of addition strategies during the primary years and progress from using mainly counting based strategies to retrieval of known number facts. This thesis looks at the cognitive developmental and social factors which influence children's strategy choices for addition sums during these early years. Siegler and Jenkins's (1989) model for the distribution of strategies based on the speed and accuracy of a strategy for a particular sum, and Baroody and Ginsburg's (1986) schema based theory of a search for relationships and cognitive economy are challenged. The studies in this thesis reveal a large proportion of children whose conceptualisation of these abstract concepts seems to be at variance with that of adults. Contrasting theories about the conceptual basis for the transition from counting all to using min are investigated through a comparison of performance on commutativity tasks and strategy choices for sums. The studies trace development over the primary years and show an informal knowledge of commutativity in very young children. Curriculum interest in number patterns prompted an investigation into possible links between retrieval of number facts for sums and retrieval for number patterns. Performance on the patterns varied, and though a relationship was found more research in this area of curriculum development is needed before any conclusions can be reached. When questioned, most of the children aspired to using retrieval, though analysis of performance showed that strategy choice was governed by type of sum, age and rated ability.

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