Conclusion
Most children in the primary school study showed a general willingness to use the strategy of drawing diagrams. There are strong indications in the first study that drawing diagrams can be an important strategy in problem solving but that is not exploited in the classroom. The desire to push children too quickly problem one into abstract manipulation and algorithms be one reason for this. And possibly teachers may have the may perception(which is passed on to the children) that drawing diagrams is somehow less mathematically respectable than algebraic manipulation.