Kindergartners’ Use of Symbols in the Semiotic Representation of 3-Dimensional Changes

Orientation skill’s development is one of the topics studied in Mathematics Education because of its difficulty. In this article, we are concerned about the orientation skill of five-year-old children. For this end, we show a case study and a preliminary quantitative study of the symbolization used by children to depict graphically 3-dimensional changes in a plane. For this purpose, we have designed an activity based on Realistic Mathematics Education, where the children should find a treasure at the Childhood Education School and represent the itinerary between the classroom and the treasure in a map. We have also measured their spatial abilities through a specific test. The results show that, in one way or another, all the children understand the notion of 3-dimensionality and the changes in verticality, which they depict with specific symbols on the corresponding map. In any event, the semiotic representation depends on the orientation skill of the children. Thus, the types of symbols use vary with their orientation skills.