Children from low-income backgrounds, particularly low-income African-American backgrounds, are often depicted as choosing strategies unwisely.
Suggestions have been made that instruction focus on improving their metacognition and their strategy selection.
However, selection of appropriate strategies does not seem to be their main problem, a t least in the context of arithmetic.
Their strategy choices are just as systematic and just as sensitive to problem characteristics as those of children from middle income backgrounds (Kerkman & Siegler, 1993).
Instead, their problem seems to be that they do not possess adequate factual knowledge.
This in turn seems to be due to less practice in solving problems, and to less good execution of strategies, rather than to any high level deficiency in their thinking.
The findings indicate that greater practice and instruction in how to execute strategies may be the most useful approach to improving their arithmetic skills.