Young children's partitioning strategies

Abstract

Taxonomies for classifying children's partitioning strategies have generally focused on the contexts in which the strategies occur and whether the strategies generate fair shares. Therefore, the overall aim of this study was to increase our knowledge about young children's partitioning strategies by setting out not only to identify new partitioning strategies but also to develop a taxonomy for classifying young children's partitioning strategies in terms of their ability to facilitate the abstraction of the partitive quotient fraction construct from the concrete activity of partitioning objects and/or sets of objects. Clinical interviews were conducted with twelve purposely-selected Year Three students. Each student was presented with a unique set of realistic partitioning tasks. The paper concludes with a taxonomy for: (i) qualitatively evaluating a child's progress towards the abstraction of the partitive quotient fraction construct, and (ii) planning and implementing teaching interventions commensurate with the child's level of progress towards the abstraction of the partitive quotient fraction construct. This taxonomy provides researchers and teachers with means of better utilising children's informal partitioning strategies as the foundation upon which to further develop their understandings of the partitive quotient fraction construct.