Effects of counting and thinking strategies in teaching addition and subtraction problems

Summary

Fifty‐eight of the 112 children from Primary 2 (second grade) classes in Nigerian private and public schools were given instructions about using counting and thinking strategies on number facts. The results revealed that the 58 children (average age 6.8 years for 31 children from private, and 7.8 years for 27 children from public schools) performed better on both recall and retention of number facts tests than the remaining 54 children (average age 6.9 years for 26 children from private, and 8.0 years for 28 children from public schools) taught in the traditional way. It is suggested that counting and thinking strategies should be included in the primary school curriculum since children who do not use these strategies may be constrained in their ability to solve more difficult number tasks.

Keywords:

• counting strategies
• thinking strategies
• canonical problems
• non‐canonical problems
• number triples
• facts families