to Think Abstractly

One of the missions of education is to prepare children for complex tasks that occur in their cultural environment. By means of abstracting, the effects of this complexity can be reduced. Recent research and theoretical development show us that young children already seem to be able to think abstractly. The acknowledgement of this potential in young children may provide a vehicle for the promotion of more mathematical thinking. In this article, we describe an approach to abstraction that focuses on schematising activities. On the basis of our research, we conclude that young children are able to improve the quality of their abstract mathematical thinking by these means. Being able to think abstractly is not an explicitly defined goal of the Dutch educational system. However, education has the potential to contribute to the development of abstract thinking by bringing children in contact with theoretical knowledge that cannot be derived directly from concrete observation. For example, mathematical thinking is generally acknowledged to be abstract, but grammatical parsing is also an abstract accomplishment which requires tha