What number makes sense? Standard word problems with non-standard wording

Abstract

In the reported experiment, we focus on word problems of the type What number makes sense, which comes from Singapore textbooks. This problem was set to primary school 5th graders.

In the analysis of the experiment, we focus on mathematical reasoning involving argumentation and on communication observed in pupils' discussions while solving the problem. We comment on pupils' reactions in terms of three approaches (mathematical, linguistic, real contextual) of which we have kept record also in our previous experiments.

Keywords

• Argumentation
• word problems
• declension
• multiplicative relations
• Singapore math.