Individual Student Math Profile

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Jessica Siegel

Field Assignment 3

April 5, 2013

For this assessment, I chose a female, 5 year old kindergartener. We were seated

in a mini hallway in the classroom by the door to the hallway, far from the rest of the

class. I interviewed her at the end of silent reading time after lunch, while the rest of the

class was starting to playing bingo with the substitute teacher. I interviewed her one-on-

one rather than in a small group. We were seated at a table and I had a bucket of unifix

cubes for her to work with. By looking at previous math work done by Melania, she

occasionally reverses how she writes her numbers and sometimes subtracts instead of

adding when completing math activity sheets. She isnt always the first to raise her hand

to answer questions during math lessons, but when she does, she sometimes answers

incorrectly or takes a little bit more time than other, more advanced students to answer

correctly.

I first asked Melania to show me a combination of 4 using the unifix cubes. After

she made the first combination, I asked her to make another one and kept asking until she

made as many different combinations that she could think of. The first combination that

she made was 2 and 2. She said that this was the first combination she made because they

are equal numbers. She neglected to make the combinations of 4 and 0, and 0 and 4. I

dont believe this was a lack of knowledge. If prompted, or if given some scaffolding,

Melania would have been able to tell me that 4 and 0 is a combination of 4. Making any

of the combinations with 0 are more difficult for kindergarteners because they cant show

the number 0 with cubes. Kindergarteners are in the concrete stage of cognitive


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development where it is much easier to understand and learn through hands on activities

and being able to use manipulatives. The number 0 is more of an abstract concept since it

cant be seen.

When I asked her what she was thinking about while making the combinations,

she said she first thought of all the combinations that she knew in her head and then she

built them with the unifix cubes. When Melania made the combination 3 and 1, I asked

her if there was another way to look at the cubes instead of just a combination of 3 and 1.

I asked her what we can do to the numbers 3 and 1 to make 4. She first said we can equal

them. When I reworded my question and held the cubes up, she said we could squish

them together to make 4. I then asked her if she knew a math term for squishing the cubes

together and when I told her that we talked about it today in our math lesson, she said

plus. This shows her beginning understanding that combinations help us to learn

addition.

I laid out 5 cubes on the table and asked Melania to make the first combination

that came to her mind. She made 5 and 1. I asked her to make another combination and

she reached in the bucket for more cubes and made 2 and 3. This time when I asked her

what the total number was, she first said 8 and then quickly changed her answer to 5, but

without counting all of the cubes. Im not sure if her error was a lack of understanding or

if it was just a slip. I assume that she guessed the number first, and then maybe counted in

her head again to get the correct answer.

Sometimes I laid out a certain number of cubes and asked Melania to create a

combination with the given cubes. Other times, I asked Melania to make a combination


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with a certain number of cubes, like 6 for example. When I asked her to make a

combination of a certain number, I would ask her to tell me what the combination was

(what two numbers did you make) and then asked what the combination made (the total

number of cubes). Instead of counting the cubes to tell me how many there were total, she

told me right away, which shows her knowledge that even though she displays 2 and 4 to

make 6, all of the cubes make a total of 6. I also think that when she was reaching in the

bucket for new cubes, she was counting them as she was taking them out, which is a good

skill to have as a 5 year old. By counting as she goes, she doesnt have to continuously

recount the cubes and doesnt have to make guesses.

Whenever I asked Melania to make a new combination of numbers with

the unifix cubes, she chose new cubes for every combination. She never made a new

combination with the same unifix cubes. For example, when I asked her to make a

combination of 7, she made 3 and 4. Even though I asked her to make another

combination of 7 with the same cubes that she had out, she reached in the bucket for new

cubes to make a new combination.

By the end of kindergarten, all students are required to know all the combinations

of numbers that make the numbers 1 through 10. For example, students must know that 1

and 4 makes 5, 2 and 3 makes 5, 3 and 2 makes 5, 4 and 1 makes 5 and so does 0 and 5

and 5 and 0. Melania showed that she understands how combinations work and showed

that she knows all the combinations for smaller numbers up to 5.

Understanding combinations is the stepping stone for learning addition. Melania

is still in the middle and is beginning to understand that she is adding the two numbers in


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a combination together to get the total number. Melania understood that 3 and 4 cubes

equaled 7 and so did 1 and 6, which is important. From observing this, I know that

Melania understands that the same number can be displayed and rearranged in different

ways, but the total number still doesnt change. This knowledge is addressed in the

common core standards for kindergarteners.

Another one of the math standards for kindergarten states that students should be

able to count forward beginning from a given number within the known sequence instead

of having to begin at 1. Melania found it easy to count from 2 and add 2 to make 4

without counting the individual cubes to make 4. With regard to the higher numbers, like

7 and 8, Melania counted beginning from 1. She found it difficult and avoided starting

from 3 and counting up 4 more to get 7. With more practice over time, Melania will

improve and will soon be able to begin counting from a larger number up to an even

larger number, instead of starting at 1.


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Individual Student Math Profile