NUMBER SENSE-BASED STRATEGIES USED BY HIGH-ACHIEVING SIXTH GRADE STUDENTS WHO EXPERIENCED REFORM TEXTBOOKS

The purpose of this study was to explore strategies used by high-achieving 6th grade students in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to solve basic arithmetic problems involving number sense. The sample for the study consisted of 15 high-achieving boys and 15 high-achieving girls in grade 6 from 2 schools in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi, UAE. Data for the study were collected through individual interviews in which students were presented with 10 basic problems. The results showed that a low percentage of solutions involved aspects of number sense such as appropriate use of benchmarks; using numbers flexibly when mentally computing, estimating, and judging reasonableness of results; understanding relative effect of operations; and decomposing or recomposing numbers to solve problems. It was also found that students were highly dependent on school-taught rules. In many cases, these rules were confused and misused.