Dotted grid and square grid in teaching geometry in lower grades of elementary school

Abstract

This work aims to underline the advantage of use of dotted grid and square grid as auxiliary tools for visualization in adoption of basic notions in geometry and problems solving in geometry in lower grades of elementary school. Visualization is an important part of cognitive process in mathematics while square grid and dotted grid help students visualize mathematic tasks therefore being significant. Although they are used in every grade of the initial four grades of primary school in the process of teaching geometry topics, neither students nor teachers use their advantages to a sufficient extent. The advantages of their use have been confirmed in the research conducted with the students of second and fourth grade in two primary schools. By analyzing of the obtained test results, we concluded that the use of the square grid increases the success in problem solving. Considering that notebooks with a square grid are used in mathematics teaching, the square grid should be used especially in the field of geometry.