Papel das representações na construção da compreensão matemática dos alunos do 1º ciclo

Abstract

The study in which this article is based, has the purpose to understand how primary children’s external representations are constructed, and their influence in their own understanding. The study was made in a 3rd grade and the attention was focused in a group of four students. The researcher was the teacher of the class. It was used a qualitative methodology in which we consider some types of problem situations: division and additive.

In a general way we can verify that children’s own representations are used when they solve similar problems and this representations can be developed later by them. In the analysed problems iconic elements and schemata that children represented had an important role in the activity. Some signals were identified which indicate the existence of understanding during the problems solving, specially by the drawings that children made, by their verbal manifestations and their relation with errors. The process of constructing representations and their formalization with understanding are influenced by the teacher, the other students and the knowledge they already have.