Rachael Boglarsky Post 3: Student Work

Posted above are pictures from the student work I collected this week. Because math is not instructed in my classroom, I pull a few students each day I'm there and ask a quick math question. The question I asked this week was based off of the style of question I did for my Student Interviews. The question I asked was: Susie has 10 pencils. The teacher gave her 3 more. How many pencils does Susie have?

I chose this question for a few reasons. First, I used it because when I tried subtraction with my students on a whim, they were extremely frustrated, but were comfortable with the concept of addition. As I start pulling students, I do not want their time with me to be frustrating or something they dread, so I kept the task fairy simple. Secondly, I chose this task to gain a better understanding about where the children are with their math skills, because I do not see daily work or instruction. I used a single-digit math problem for my student interviews that the students solved with few problems, so I chose a similar problem with higher numbers because I wanted to see how the students were with adding numbers above ten. This task will show me if the students are able to count with one-to-one correspondence above ten, or if they are just rote counting.

To approach the task, I read the question and let the student explore a variety of ways of solving it. I provide paper, a pencil, and manipulatives for the students to use.

Based on previous interviews, I anticipate that students will either use their fingers to count to and up to ten, or they will use the manipulatives I provide.

The students I talked to used two methods; using the manipulatives and using tally marks with paper and pencil. The student who used the beads counted out ten of them and grouped those together. Then she counted out three more and grouped those separate from the ten. Then, she counted all the beads on the paper and told me "13." This shows me that the student knows how to pull important information from a word problem (she knew to use 10 and 3), that she can count using one-to-one correspondence to 13, and is not simply rote counting, and that she is familiar with the basic concept of adding two numbers together to make a larger number. The second student was the first student I've had use pencil and paper. He used tally marks to represent numbers. He was silent as he worked, but he drew out thirteen tallies (though he did not cross the fives). He drew ten tallies first, then drew three tallies a slight distance away from the others. Again, this shows me that he is able to use one-to-one correspondence to at least 13, and that he can successfully use various representations of numbers and word problems (this student solved a similar problem last week, though he used his fingers last time). The fact that he chose to use a visual representation instead of his fingers this time shows me that counting above ten may be something more difficult, or at least something that he is less comfortable doing only in his head.