PME-NA

Exploring The Affordances Of Assessing Counting With Challenging Tasks

• In Event: Poster Session #1
  In Poster Session: Exploring The Affordances Of Assessing Counting With Challenging Tasks

Description

Counting is often thought of as a basic skill that is easily assessed, but deciding how to assess young children is still a much-discussed topic. In this study we investigated how young children respond to different types of counting tasks. We posit that providing children with a range of challenging tasks might allow us to observe understanding that would otherwise be overlooked by common measures. We conducted 69 counting interviews with preschoolers aged 37-56 months where they were asked to count aloud and count different collections of objects. Many children showed understanding of the number sequence and one-to-one correspondence on challenging tasks that would not be captured by typical assessments. The variations we observed suggest giving children multiple opportunities to problem solve in various contexts can provide teachers and researchers a greater understanding of children's knowledge and comfort.

Authors

• Carlos Alejandro de Alba, San Diego State University & University of California, San Diego

• Nicholas Charles Johnson, San Diego State University