Essential Understandings for the development of students’ Mathematical Reasoning: comprehension presented by early years teachers

It is essential to promote initial and continuing training actions for teachers working at different levels of schooling about Mathematical Reasoning (MR), as well as to identify aspects of these training processes that make it possible to infer the participating teachers' understandings this topic. In view of this, this qualitative research aims to understand how the development of a training process can contribute for teachers' understandings about the Essential Understandings for the development of students’ MR, in the context of early years of primary schools. The data were collected during a training process supported by the continuing training model, know as PLOT. The methodology used during this investigation consists of analyzing the dialogues promoted by teachers during the performance of a Professional Learning Task. As a result of this research, we concluded that this process enabled the participating teachers to improve their knowledge of some of the MR processes. We also recognize the teachers' difficulty in understanding the processes of generalization and investigation of why.