The use of structured materials with older pupils

Dienes (1960:31) has described mathematics as ‘a structure of relationships, the formal symbolism being merely a way of communicating parts of the structure from one person to another’. Shortly afterwards (1960:31) he speaks of ‘structural relationships between concepts connected with numbers’. He then says (1960:312): The learning of mathematics I shall take to mean the apprehension of such relationships together with their symbolisation.’