Problems with variation and figural equation: Chinese didactics tools transposed into an Italian primary school

Abstract

This paper shows the possibility of developing an approach to pre-algebraic thinking with primary school pupils which pays more attention to the structural features of additive problems than to the numerical ones. In particular, by illustrating a teaching experiment carried out with primary school pupils (grade 2), the aim is to show how a transposition of didactic tools which are typical of Chinese didactics – problems with variation and figural equation – can be implemented in the Italian primary school context. It is shown how, starting from the text of a problem and the symbolic representation of its data, children are able to understand and, in turn, construct variations of the starting problem, by exploring the potentialities linked to the structure of the variation itself. Children are thus led to develop skills in the use of pre-algebraic resolution structures, shifting the attention from the procedural to the relational level.