Book Description

Ways adults think about mathematics and the ways children think about mathematics are not necessarily the same. Listening, observing, and talking with children is necessary so that teachers, parents, and carers can figure out where they are coming from mathematically. If children’s mathematics encompasses their own meanings and understandings, and those meanings and understandings may be different to mine, then to provide effective assistance and support, I must make every effort to see mathematics from their perspective. In this book I highlight important aspects of children’s beginning understandings of mathematics, illustrated with examples taken from observations of children. In Chapter 1 I discuss the origins of mathematics in infants with illustrations provided from three major strands of mathematics: number, space, and measurement. In Chapter 2 I give examples of different ways young children use fingers in their efforts to solve simple mathematical problems, looking in detail at one child’s behavior. Chapter 3 focuses on a 4-year-old’s views about numbers. There is a commonly held belief that before children start school they have not really thought about numbers; that young children’s mathematical minds are a blank slate. Nothing could be further from the case. In Chapter 4 I discuss the topic of counting, focusing firstly on the spontaneous counting behavior of a 4-year-old, followed by interviews that further reveal how his knowledge of numbers and counting are related. Chapter 5 further discusses how children learn about numbers; in particular the various conceptions children have of the number 10. I explain the significance of part-whole knowledge in children’s numerical thinking in Chapter 6, with examples taken from preschool, the 2nd grade, and 5th grade. Chapter 7 is about sharing, its origins, contexts when sharing arises, types of sharing, and the relationship between sharing and counting, sharing and division, and sharing as a platform for learning fractions. In Chapter 8 I begin by discussing early geometric ideas, including basic operations for moving items in two dimensions, followed by three-dimensional activities. I discuss the key notion of conservation of quantity and conclude with comments about scale and distance. Chapter 9 begins with the question “What is measurement?” I discuss the issue of measurement error, then sketch out a general development of measurement thinking. Types of conservation are described, as are unit systems. Finally, children’s thinking in area situations, including common misconceptions, are discussed. In Chapter 10, after a story showing how fractions can be introduced naturally, I focus on the fraction knowledge of an 11-year-old, who responded to a range of tasks designed to tease out this child’s conceptual understanding of fractions.