development of math strategies in a sociocultural context

Current studies are rapidly investigating strategy choice on tasks such as math and reading that children encounter in day to day life; it follows that strategy development should also be examined in the naturalistic settings where children actually perform these tasks. From a sociocultural learning perspective, we examined five year old children's arithmetic strategy use, in a game context, with the most likely of mentors for a young child, his or her parents. Children played three games of a modified version of "Chutes and Ladders" with one of their parents. Children's strategy use and parents' behavior were coded and analyzed. Results indicate that parents usually provided appropriate support to their children, providing more direction and assistance to the children who required them, and less to those who did not.