Relative difficulty of early grade compare type word problems: Learning from the case of isiXhosa

Abstract

Word problems are a central, yet hard-to-teach, aspect of early grade mathematics. For example, in South Africa word problems have been identified as a recurring weakness in the South African Annual National Assessments (ANAs) (Department of Basic Education, 2012, 2014, 2015). Research has shown that the relative difficulty of word problems differs: learners are more likely to solve certain types of word problems than others. For additive relation word problems, in other words any word problems involving addition and subtraction, compare type problems have been shown to be the most difficult for learners to solve. Compare type problems are of the form ‘Sbu has eight bananas and Sive has five bananas. How many more bananas does Sbu have than Sive?’ While there has been some research into early grade word problems in South Africa (e.g. Petersen, McAuliffe, & Vermeulen, 2017), and some research into word problems and African languages in higher grades (e.g. Sepeng, 2013), there has been little research into early grade word problems in African languages. This is problematic as more than 75% of learners are taught mathematics in an indigenous African language in the first four years of formal schooling (Spaull, 2016).