The need to provide understandable problems and ways to help children understand problems are explored. An interview with a sixth grader depicts his incorrect strategies and leads to suggestions for teaching problem solving using a range of mathematical models for each operation. (MNS)

The concept of multiplication is described and illustrated using several different representational systems. A conceptual approach to teaching mathematics is compared with the procedural approach commonly found in the school curriculum. Four different methods of representing the multiplication process with numbers larger than ten are presented:…