The Study On The Development Of Understanding And Use Of Multipication In Young Children Aged 5-7

The purpose of this study was to investigate the developmental characteristics in young children's understanding and use of multipication. A sample of 180 children aged 5-7 was randomly selicted from three ordinary preschools and one primary school in a city from Henan Province. The test to assess young children's equivalent groups in this study was adapted from the measure created by Greer and Anghileri (Greer, 1992;Anghileri,1989), and the other test to examinate young children's many-to-one was adapted from Sophian and Madrid (Sophian & Madrid 2003),and the test to examinate young children's repeated addition was adapted from Park and Nunes (Park& Nunes,2001). The study examined the statues of young children's multipication by means of Descriptive Statistics; the effects of age and gender on their performances of the multipication using MANOVA; the relationship among their multipication and repeated addition through Correlation Analysis. The implication of the study was also discussed.The results indicated that with age increasing, the understsnding and use of multipication of young children aged 5-7 improved. The difference between aged 6and 7 just greater than aged 5 and 6; But no gender discrimination was found on the children's multipication; The understsnding and use of multipication of young children aged 5-7 was impacted by material objects; The effective strategy improved during aged 5-7, and the strategy development from additive to multiplicative thinking; The children do the better performance on repeated addition, and the repeated addition is only a strategy to solve the multipication.