The Ability And Strategies Of 4-6 Year Old Children To Solve The Problem Of Equal Sharing

Equally dividing is to divide things into several parts equally in amount.Children have many experiences of dividing equally in their ordinary lives.Studies show that the experiences of dividing equally as an unformal knowledge build foundation for children to learn formal division knowledge in the future.There are two types of division method: quotitive division and partitive division.This research is conducted to investigate children's ability of solving different dividing problems(quotitive division,partitive division),and analyze the corresponding strategies they take.The participants were 122 4-6 years old children.The results of this research show that:1.4-6 years-old children are able to accomplish the task of equally dividing the number no more than 24 under different circumstances.It proves previous study results.2.4-6 years-old children's capability of dividing equally varies in age significantly,and in different types of tasks(quotitive division,partitive division)as well.Children at the age of 5 have better capability in quotitive division than in partitive division.3.4-6 years-old children take diversified strategies when solving problems of equal dividing.The different strategies are adopted under different tasks(quotitive division,partitive division).4-6 years-old children have started to take effective strategies to solve equal dividing problems,and the strategies taken by children at different age shows no significant difference.