The Study On The Development Of Representation Of Number And Place Value In Young Children Aged 4-6

The purpose of this study was to investigate the development characteristics in young children's representation of number and place value,and the relationship between them.A sample of 120 children age 4-6 was randomly selected from 4 classes in two ordinary preschools in Shanghai.The test to assess young children's cognitive representation of number in this study was adapted from the study of Miura and Kim(Miura & Kim,1988),and the other test to assess the development of young children's place value was adapted from the measure created by Miura and Okamoto (Miura & Okamoto,1989),as well as Sinclair and Scheuer(Sinclair & Scheuer,1997). The study examined the statues of young children's representation of number and place value by means of Descriptive Statistics;the effects of age and gender on their performances of the representation of number and place value using MANOVA and Independent T Test;the relationship between their representation and place value through Correlation Analysis.The implication of the study was also discussed.The result indicated:1)the children between 4 and 6 years have significant age differences of their representation of number.4-year-olds began to understand the notation up to 20,while 5-year-olds became more sophisticated and flexible in representing bi-digit numbers;2)the strategies used by the children also had the significant age differences;that the 5-year-olds used more canonical base 10 representation,and make a construction of tens and ones to show numbers;while 4-year-olds used more one to one collection,and showed the numbers with units;3) their development of place value had the significant age differences;the face value was very pervasive;4)the effect of Chinese number words was caused by other elements;5)the significant positive correlation emerged between children's performance on representation of number and place value;place value was also correlated positively with the use of canonical Base 10 representation on first trial and correlated negatively with the use of one to one collections;6)no gender discrimination was found on the children's representation of number and on the place value.