Pattern recognition and generalization in 4-year-olds: The impact of task contexts and teaching resources on the development of algebraic thinking

Abstract

This study analyzes pattern recognition in 4-year-olds by examining how they understand repeating patterns and initiate generalization in tasks with different teaching resources, with the aim of identifying the most effective resources for fostering early algebraic thinking. A teaching itinerary was designed and implemented with 24 children over one school term. This itinerary is based on an explicit pedagogical approach that promotes generalization. It starts with tasks from real-life situations, manipulatives, and games, and progresses to tasks using graphic resources, considering progressive abstraction: from informal to intermediate and formal contexts. Data were collected through systematic observation of the children’s actions, verbalizations and graphical productions. Performance was assessed by analyzing the children’s in-situ strategies and responses, and indicators of generalization were identified when children anticipated or transferred structural regularities across different representations. The teaching intervention emphasized both open and structured questioning to promote explanation, justification and progressive generalization. The results show that children perform better with informal resources than with intermediate and formal resources. In addition, 25 % of the participants show signs of generalization when translating patterns with different elements. We conclude, on the one hand, that the approach used is a powerful tool to promote, assess and describe generalization at early ages; and, on the other hand, that it provides a well-founded pedagogical framework for rethinking how the teaching of patterns is conceptualized, structured and implemented in early childhood, emphasizing the use of resources that support tangible, concrete and visual manipulation of structures

This work was supported by the Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports of Spain under the Grant for University Teacher Training (FPU16-01856) and the Department of Specific Didactics of the Faculty of Education and Psychology at the University of Girona. Open Access funding provided thanks to the CRUE-CSIC agreement with Elsevier

4