CGI Main

CGI--Cognitively Guided Instruction

Cognitively Guded Instruction is a theory about how children learn number operations: addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. The research that CGI is based on was done at UW-Madison with primary grades children (K-2). The book Children's Mathematics: Cognitively Guided Instruction is a good reference for teachers who want to know more about CGI.

Some of the main results of the research which informs CGI are:

Children who are provided mathematical tasks that they can understand and model develop ways of solving those problems.
Word problems can be categorized and analyzed to reveal which ones will be most approachable and appropriate for early learners. These categories are the CGI problem types.
Problems in each problem type have characteristics which influence how children understand and model the problems.
Children follow a pattern of development in their calculating abilites: direct modeling to solve problems; counting up and back to solve problems; and using more abstract strategies (that rely on known number combinations) to solve problems.

Identifying addition and subtraction problems by their CGI problem type

Range of difficulty of CGI addition and subtraction problem types

Direct modeling strategies for CGI addition and subtraction problem types

Counting strategies for CGI addition and subtraction problem types.