Children's Strategies with Number Patterns

Pattern and generalisation are both thought to be fundamental to mathematics and are therefore important in mathematics education. This study investigates how children throughout the junior age range generalise about number patterns and the cognitive processes involved in this. The data were collected from 315 children aged between 7 and 11 years, by means of a workbook which gave children the opportunity to work with different types of pattern within different tasks. Analysis of the data revealed the different types of generalisation made by the children and the different cognitive processes which seemed to be involved. This paper examines specifically the strategies children use when they make generalisations about individual number patterns and briefly discusses how these vary across year groups.