Kindergarten Children Solving Additive Problems: Which Strategies?

Abstract Several studies report young children's ability to solve addition and subtraction problems before receiving any formal instruction. This study focuses on how 4-6-year-old children (N=90) understand additive structure problems. It addresses two questions: 1) How do children perform when solving additive structure problems? 2) What strategies do children use when solving additive structure problems? Quantitative methods were used to analyse children's performance and strategies when solving 28 additive structure problems presented to them using individual interviews. Results suggest that children easily solved the given problems using adequate strategies, some could even count and rely on numerical facts.