Mental calculation skills and algebraic initiation: some relationships

• Main Authors: Célia Maria Carolino Pires, Thereza Maria de Fátima Quilici Figueiredo
• Format: Article
• Language: Spanish
• Published: Universidade Federal do Pará 2014-12-01
• Series: Amazônia
• Subjects: conhecimentos prévios; cálculo mental; iniciação algébrica; educação matemática
• Online Access: http://www.periodicos.ufpa.br/index.php/revistaamazonia/article/view/2366

This article identifies,  understands and characterized previous knowledge of students from 6th and 7th grades in relation to mental calculation skills and how these are linked to the construction of tasks that start they in the field of algebra. This is a qualitative study conducted with 13 students, seven students in a class of 6th grade six students from another class of 7th, all in a private school in the city of São Paulo. The first proposed activity intended to investigate the mental calculation procedures involving both natural numbers as rational numbers in decimal form. The second activity was intended to raise the procedures used to perform some tasks that characterize his early approaches to calculations using letters. At the end of the analysis, we found that the competence shown by students on the mental arithmetic with natural numbers contributed positively for the exploitation of algebraic situations presented, which shows the importance of using this knowledge as anchors. Students were able to solve algebraic problems using their knowledge arithmetic without using formal algebraic manipulations. We also realize that such a power not seen for calculations with rational numbers in decimal form.