THE MATHEMAT？CAL ERRORS ON WORD PROBLEMS ARE MADE BY 4th GRADES

The purpose of this survey is to examine mathematical mistakes of fourth grade students while they are solving story problems together with their mathematical language skills. Four Operations is a step, which is almost the base of mathematics. Curriculum of 4th Grade in Primary Schools says that four operations must be taught to the students by means of problems that shall be the centre of attention during the whole year. Due to the fact that four operations have this massive significance, it is necessary to determine the kinds of errors made by the students while they are solving the problems and also to find solutions for such errors; so that the whole topic can be learned in the best possible way. Considering the fact that there have not been any survey up to now which focus on this matter, this survey is expected to provide great contribution to written sources within the field of mathematics and to surveys that shall be carried out and that shall aim to determine and to solve errors made by the students. Case Study pattern, which is one of the Qualitative Methods, is followed while making this survey hereby. The survey scopes on fourth grade students in three different primary schools in ？ANAKKALE/BAYRAMI？ during the educational year 2016 – 2017. On the other hand, survey group consists of 7 students, who meet the criteria necessary for the survey, who are willing to participate in the survey and whose parents declared their consent for participation of their children in such a survey. White (2005) word problems were adapted into Turkish language and these problems are the Data Collection technique of this survey. Once Turkish adaptation studies were completed, these ten word problems were asked to all of the students. Later, necessary applications were carried out in accord with the procedures of Newman Error Analysis by participation of 7 students that were willing to participate. According to the results obtained at the end of the survey, fourth grade students have difficulties in reading, in understanding what they have read and in expressing what they have read by using their own words. Their handwritings are almost impossible to read, that is why they also have difficulties in reading their own handwritings. They cannot determine the suitable pattern to solve the problems due to their lack of understanding the question; yet more, they create their own operations by using the numbers they have seen in the questions. Their lack of knowing four operations might lead them to errors. They especially avoid from multiplication operations