The role of symbolic mediation in cognitive activity in primary school (acquisition of the function concept)

The paper discusses the possibilities of symbol application to the learning of function concept in primary school. Author differentiates symbol and sign mediation. . Symbolic mediation is divided into productive (which assists transfer to sign mediation) and unproductive. Three groups of children were learning concept of function according to three programs: traditional, based on sign mediation; experimental, based on productive symbolic mediation; experimental, based on unproductive symbolic . mediation. Experiment showed that symbolic mediation could be a productive way of learning concept of function if core relationships in image content of symbol that can bring to sign mediation are defined.