A teaching intervention study was conducted with sixth grade students to explore the interconnections between students' growing understanding of arithmetic expressions and beginning algebra. Three groups of students were chosen, with two groups receiving instruction in arithmetic and algebra, and one group in algebra without arithmetic. Students of the groups that learnt arithmetic developed a strong understanding of the concept of term and applied it to reason about equal expressions. They performed better at some questions in algebra, especially those that required a sense of the structure and meaning of the expression.... It has been recognized that students' understanding of arithmetic and algebraic expressions are interconnected. For example, students who make errors in manipulating algebraic expressions repeat some of these errors when dealing with arithmetic expressions (Linchevski and Livneh, 1999). Many students have a poor sense of the structure of arithmetic expressions and are unable to judge the equivalence of expressions like 685–492+947 and 947–492+685 without recourse to computation (Chaiklin and Lesgold, 1984). Algebra, as generalized arithmetic, symbolizes and exploits the structural aspects of arithmetic. However, it is not clear whether instruction oriented to developing the structure sense of arithmetic expressions transfers to algebra. It might well be the case that learning algebra paves the way for a better understanding of arithmetic expressions since the algebraic symbolism enhances the structure of the expression.

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