CHILDRENS STRATEGIES WITH NUMBER PATTERNS

Pattern and generalisation are both thought to be fundamental to mathe matics and are therefore important in mathematics education. This stud y investigates how children throughout the junior age range generalise about number patterns and the cognitive processes involved in this. T he data were collected from 315 children aged between 7 and 11 years, by means of a workbook which gave children the opportunity to work wit h different types of pattern within different tasks. Analysis of the d ata revealed the different types of generalisation made by the childre n and the different cognitive processes which seemed to be involved. T his paper examines specifically the strategies children use when they make generalisations about individual number patterns and briefly disc usses how these vary across year groups.