Longitudinal study of the symbolic representation capacity in children in the 3-6 cycle of Early Childhood Education in tasks related to mathematical dictation

Abstract In this work, mathematical dictations are used as a didactical-instrumental approach to perform a longitudinal study on the mathematical representation capacity in children at an early age. For this purpose, a field study was carried out with a total sample of 104 girls and boys of 1st, 2nd, and 3rd grade of Early Childhood Education. The results obtained, regardless of the age group, are: a) there is a positive relationship between the difficulty index of the dictates and the percentage of children who did not complete their task successfully; b) the repetition of tasks, within the same dictation, with equivalent difficulty fosters significant learning, regardless of the cognitive level, for girls and boys; c) according to the Van Hiele levels, greater difficulties are detected in the symbolic representation of objects when a higher degree of abstraction and mathematical complexity appear.