Build on children's informal proportional understandings to prepare for ratio and proportion¶

Strategy · All strategies
Evidence · 1 claim (1 for) · 1 study (1 theoretical), q1 · 0 of 1 report an effect size · 1 claim rests on one study

Description¶

Beyond sharing and dividing, the presentation reports that researchers and mathematics educators suggest building on children's informal understandings of proportional relationships. This "will lay the foundation for learning more advanced concepts of ratio and proportion in the upper elementary grades." Suggested activities include pointing out size and pattern relationships in children's stories, preparing recipe mixtures involving relationships among quantities, and showing how objects vary together in size or length.

Design Implications¶

Context¶

Requirements¶

• Teachers point out relationships in familiar story, recipe, and object-comparison contexts

Constraints¶

Target Learners¶

• primary-grade students preparing for upper elementary mathematics

Target Learning Goals¶

• proportional relationships
• foundations for ratio and proportion

Claims¶

• Learning is effective when it builds on children's existing knowledge in real-world contexts, and early fraction foundations matter because many older children struggle with rational numbers [+W]

Related Strategies¶

• Introduce unit fractions through partitioning a single object among sharers
• Use varied equal-partitioning problems to develop fraction comparison and equivalence
• Begin fraction instruction with activities that involve dividing groups of objects equally

Examples¶

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Key Sources¶

• The Conceptual Basis for Fractions. (2011). Developed at least in part with Federal funds from the U.S. Department of Education under contract number ED-PEP-11-C-0068. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/