This paper reports on 73 Grades 3 to 6 students' written responses to equal groups, arrays, multiplicative comparison and Cartesian product word problems. It is part of a larger study relating to students' development of multiplicative thinking (MT). The potential of using multiplicative word problems as a diagnostic assessment to reveal students'…

Mathematical knowledge in classrooms is mediated through the use of both technical and informal language. This paper is a report of a study of the language use of teachers as they examine students' work and discuss teaching for the topic of fraction operations. This provides a window on their pedagogical content knowledge and also on the way in…

This article outlines how a Brisbane independent school, Clayfield College, improved the ability of its Year 3 students to solve addition and subtraction word problems by utilising a schematic approach. It was observed that while students could read the words in the text of a written problem, many had difficulty identifying the core information…