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Mathematical Stages of Understanding and Student Strategies Children learn addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division in a developmental way. There are stages that children must develop through in order to have a true understanding of these concepts. We, as teachers, let children play with manipulatives and have fun learning in the “direct modeling” stage. But from there we often skip straight to the “facts” stage. It is essential that we expose children to the stages in between. One major reason is that when a child can not remember the “fact" they will have a deep understanding of the numbers so that they can easily (and quickly) find an alternative way to figure out the answer. |