First Encounter with Variables by First and Third Grade Spanish Students

Abstract

This chapter presents findings from a teaching experiment on the initial understandings that primary Spanish studetns demosntrated when they were first introduced to the use of letters to stand for an indeterminate varying quantity in a functional relationship. We provide a detailed account of our task design and class activity to show how understanding of variable notation for functional relationships was cultivated. We discuss the degree to which results from previous studies generalize to the Spanish context. Our results, similar to those of previous studies, support the introduction of variables in elementary grades.