Developing multiplicative reasoning in Year 2 through measures contexts: some findings

In the UK, multiplicative reasoning is typically developed through ideas such as repeated addition, repeated subtraction, grouping and sharing and through using representations such as arrays. In this session, I will present an overview of my PhD design-based research project which focused on the use of measures contexts to develop multiplicative reasoning with Year 2 pupils in a school in South Wales. Using measurement contexts with continuous quantities to develop learning of number concepts is an approach developed by Davydov and Elkonin in Russia in the 1960s; they developed a whole mathematics curriculum based on this. In such a curriculum, pupils would learn about number through measures contexts with continuous quantities from the very start of schooling. The research discussed in this presentation focuses on the development of multiplicative reasoning in a context where learners are typically introduced to number using discrete objects and through counting, and in which their experiences of measures focus on how to measure. In the presentation I will give an overview of tasks used, learner and teacher responses and the themes that developed from the data collected.