Research on the practice of massaging the head of a baby with hot water and ointments in Ghana. By Dzamesi Yael (Ph.D. in Science Education)
Abstract.
The math interpretation of a picture was a difficult task for Primary 1 children. After many efforts they could count the items in a picture that described an additional operation even without the help of their teacher. A picture that described a subtraction operation was beyond the comprehension of the children.
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Math subject was taught according to Singapore official syllabus. In Primary 1 book, examples of words-problems in math are illustrated with pictures and are dealing with additions and subtractions of numbers from 1 to 10. In that way numbers are learnt from the beginning as representative of quantities as in real life. The following picture (Picture 1) is an example of subtraction and was taken from the Singapore math textbook designed to Primary 1 children [120]. The arrow in the picture indicates that fish was taking away from the pond.
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Picture 1: Subtraction word-problem.
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The picture was followed by the bellow questions.
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How many fish do you see in the picture? ______
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How many fish are in the pond? ______
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I went to fish ______ fish (Referring orally to the fish in the net).
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How many fish are left in the pond? _______
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Write the math expression: ____________________
If the teacher guided the children with the questions (in English and in their mother tongue), they related to what they saw in the picture, explained the situation, and wrote the correct math expression. However, even after 20 pictures, whenever the teacher asked them to tell what they saw in the picture (this or others) by themselves, the four children in the class could not answer and remained speechless, looking in the air with confused faces.
In contrast to subtraction, the children did well in the pictures describing addition. They wrote the correct math expression after the teacher read the questions to them.
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Why could the children relate to the picture that described addition but not to the picture that described subtraction?
To understand the picture of take-away, the children had to use their abstract thinking in understanding the meaning of the arrow and its direction, and imagine the action described in the picture. These two functions were not needed in the addition. Let us take the example of the fish and change the story from subtraction to addition by changing the direction of the arrow (Picture 2).
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Picture 2: An example of a picture that demonstrates addition.
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Now we can say that one fish was added to the pond. All what the child does is counting mechanically the fish in the picture without understanding the meaning of the arrow and its direction, and without changing in his imagination the position of the fish in the net. Since the child is already trained to count separately two groups of the same items, he or she will not find counting the two groups of fish together difficult.
When Picture 1 told a subtraction story, the child could not operate the mechanical counting. The child had to distinguish and understand the different direction of the arrow and use his imagination to see first the picture of 4 fish in the pond (before the action of the take-away) and then, the picture of 3 fish in the pond (after the action of the takeaway was done). This abstract operation where beyond the understanding of Primary 1 children in Creative Foundation School.
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