ABSTRACT
Mathematics is rich in the need for understanding concepts. Many children struggle with the leaps in perspective that are required of them. Reasoning and proving are universally recognised as one of the important foundations in mathematical thinking and are both now mentioned in the overall goals of the new National Curriculum in England. Proving activities in mathematics are not limited only to writing a proof, but also involve producing statements inductively/deductively/analogically, planning and constructing proofs, looking back over proving processes and overcoming global/local counter-examples or errors, and utilising already proved statements in the context of working on further proofs. Using a dialogic education for conceptual understanding approach we can make proving activities more accessible and fruitful for primary school children. Children produce mathematical statements about the sum of consecutive numbers and prove them with appropriate representations of numbers.
