Algebra in the senior primary classes: Commissioned research paper

Children’s engagement with algebraic thinking has traditionally commenced in senior primary or secondary school, preceded by primary school curricula that prioritised computation and understandings of number (Kieran, et al., 2016). Increasingly during the latter decades of the 20th century, educators and researchers identified that such an approach may contribute to insurmountable challenges for some children when they first encounter formal algebra, typically after six to eight years of school. In this paper I present the research underpinning the Early Algebra movement that arose from a motivation to address such challenges, and the implications of Early Algebra for the Irish Primary School Mathematics Curriculum (IPSMC). While the 1999 IPSMC included algebra as a content strand, key concepts of Early Algebra, such as generalisation, and exploration of structure, are absent (Twohill, 2013)