SOLVING ADDITIVE PROBLEMS AT PRE-ELEMENTARY SCHOOL LEVEL WITH THE SUPPORT OF GRAPHICAL REPRESENTATION

This research offers empirical evidence of the importance of supplying diverse symbolic representations in order to support concept development in mathematics. Graphical representation can be a helpful symbolic tool for concept development in the conceptual field of additive structures. Nevertheless, this symbolic tool has specific difficulties that are better dealt with when graphics are combined with symbolic-manipulative tools like building blocks. This combination showed to be effective in the context of a didactic sequence addressed to students in the beginning of elementary school level and aimed to support conceptual development in the domain of additive structures. It provides a theoretical backing for the proposal of using diverse symbolic representations in concept development in mathematics. The availability of symbolic representations is considered very helpful in conceptual building, since each particular representation (or symbolic model) allows different approaches of conceptual properties (Vergnaud, 1997; Nunes, 1997). In mathematical education, symbolic representation based on concrete artifacts has been considered specially beneficial, since these artifacts are supposed to allow a concrete