Reports on the knowledge of fifth-grade students about what they are learning about percentage. Reveals the range of comfort students had in the instructional sequence and provides suggestions for developing assessment tasks, especially student-generated problems. An appendix of sample tasks is included. (MKR)

Discusses a class on subtraction or difference-finding, problems such as "There are eight white flowers and five red flowers, how many more white flowers are there than red flowers?" used in the teaching of Japanese first grade children. Describes three instances of introductory teaching of "difference-finding" problems in the…