Visual and nonvisual processes in grade 6 students’ mathematical problem solving

This paper reports an investigation into the problem-solving methods employed by three Grade 6 students who, over the course of a school year, worked on a variety of mathematics problems. One of the students tended to solve problems in a visual manner; the second preferred a more verbal/nonvisual approach; and the third tended to use both visual and nonvisual strategies. Over the school year, the three students moved toward more nonvisual, verbal/analytic forms of reasoning as task familiarity increased.