This paper proceeds from the position that elementary- and middle-school students can learn and should be exposed to algebraic ideas and that a fruitful mechanism for this is to help them to see the algebra in arithmetic. After a brief survey of the literature on helping students see algebra in arithmetic, the main focus of the paper is on the use of mathematical problem posing in the classroom to help students see the algebra in arithmetic. To illustrate this, we present three cases of teaching mathematics through problem posing and discuss the perspectives they offer on developing students’ algebraic thinking. The paper concludes with an examination of how teachers might be supported in using problem posing to help their students see the algebra in arithmetic.
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