How to Develop Confident Mathematicians in the Early Years

A Guide for Practitioners and Parents

Tony Cotton

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• eBook ISBN: 9781351812542
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Didattica
• Subtopic: Didattica generale

Showing how everyday experiences can be used to encourage early mathematical thinking, this book will help you to support young children's mathematical development through play.

Developing Confident Mathematicians in the Early Years explains clearly the stages of mathematical development from birth to five years. It considers how practitioners and parents can create a mathematically rich environment and offers a wealth of practical activities and suggestions for adult–child interactions to enhance children's mathematical learning. Features include:

• 60 activities, each covering a core area of mathematical experience – measurement, algebra, data handling, counting and calculation
• clear explanations of the mathematics taking place in each activity and how this forms the foundation for mathematical learning in the future
• practical suggestions for home learning and working in partnership with parents
• links to the EYFS and National Curriculum.

Offering a rich source of ideas using everyday resources, this practical text will inspire practitioners and parents to nurture young children's innate confidence and ability in mathematics.

SECTION

1

Supporting children's mathematical development

1 Introduction

This section of the book explains how young children come to develop their mathematical thinking through constructing and building; through negotiating their current understandings with others, through expressing their thoughts and feelings both verbally and symbolically and through actions. I will argue that the adult’s role in this is to support children in developing their understanding by providing the possibilities for these activities to take place and through making use of the new skills in the young learner’s everyday experiences. The Reggio Emilia approach suggests that a curriculum should be based on the principles of respect, responsibility, and community through exploration and discovery, in a supportive and enriching environment based on the interests of the children through self-guided activities. This section illustrates how these principles and the basic principle of the English Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) that every child is a unique learner, can be built on to support young children’s development as mathematicians. I will also refer to the New Zealand mathematics framework and the philosophy behind the Forest Schools movement from Scandinavia to set a global context for the discussion.

The Reggio Emilia approach also emphasises that being confused is a major contributor to learning and that young children accept being confused as part of coming to understanding and awareness. I argue that, as early years practitioners, we should expect and allow mistakes to happen and should draw on our learners’ interests. Developing and extending those, “Uh?” moments. Our learners with hands upturned, shoulders lifted, eyebrows quizzical, asking, “what’s going on here?” This may mean that we begin projects or activities with no clear sense of where they might end, allowing the learners to guide the direction of learning even though that does make planning more complex.

The Reggio Emilia philosophy is based upon children having control over the direction of their learning and learning through experiences of touching, moving, listening and observing. This resonates with one of the guiding principles of the Association of Teachers of Mathematics in the UK, “The power to learn rests with the learner.” Reggio Emilia also reminds us that children learn through developing relationships with other children and with material items in the world that they explore together. This would suggest that our role, as practitioners in the early years, is to provide creative starting points and plenty of imaginative materials which encourage our young learners to explore and experiment on their own and with others. For example, a book about a building site might lead to collecting outdoor materials to mix, dilute, build, paint, hammer and sweep.

The EYFS Statutory Framework lays out the requirements for children’s learning and development and for keeping them safe in their first stages of education. These requirements cover the seven areas of learning and development which underpin children’s activities and experiences for children in early years settings. The framework also contains the Early Learning Goals which summarise the knowledge, skills and understanding that it is hoped children will take with them into primary school. Finally they describe when and how practitioners should assess children’s achievements and how they should share these assessments with parents and carers.

Perhaps more importantly the framework describes the four overarching principles that should shape the practice in early years settings. These are that:

1. Every child is a unique child, who is constantly learning and can be resilient, capable, confident and self-assured.
2. Children learn to be strong and independent through positive relationships.
3. Children learn and develop well in enabling environments, in which their experiences respond to their individual needs and there is a strong partnership between practitioners and parents and/or carers.
4. Children develop and learn in different ways and at different rates.

If we are to think about the long-term benefit of implementing these principles in our settings, we can reflect on the fact that the child who is supported to become confident and strong at five will in another five or ten years be more motivated, connected and resilient. These are the creative qualities required by higher education and by employers.

The EYFS also emphasises that all areas of learning and development are important and inter-connected. Young learners do not see the world in terms of discrete subject disciplines and so they should not experience a disconnected curriculum in their early years setting. The EYFS sees the curriculum as containing three prime areas:

• communication and language
• physical development
• personal, social and emotional development

These three areas are crucial for supporting children’s curiosity and enthusiasm for learning, as well as for building their capacity to learn. They will do this through having opportunities to experience a language-rich environment which will support them in developing their confidence and skills in expressing themselves; through being active and interacting with others; through physical activity which develops their co-ordination, control and movement, and by developing a positive sense of themselves through forming positive, respectful relationships with others. In addition to this, they will be supported in developing social skills and learning how to manage their feelings. This means they will understand what makes appropriate behaviour when working with others as well as giving them confidence in their own abilities.

As young learners making their way into the world, it is also expected that early years practitioners should support children in the four specific areas of literacy: mathematics; understanding the world; and expressive arts and design.

The EYFS states that literacy development should include encouraging children to link sounds and letters to help them begin to read and write as well as giving them access to a wide range of reading materials such as books, poems, and other written materials to ignite their growing interest in reading and writing. The mathematics they are engaging with should include opportunities to develop and improve their skills in counting, understanding and using numbers as well as calculating simple addition and subtraction problems. They should learn to describe shapes, spaces, and measure. Young children will develop their understanding of the world through being supported in their developing understanding of their physical world and their community through exploration, observation and finding out about people, places, technology and the environment. Finally, expressive arts and design involves enabling children to explore and play with a wide range of media and materials, as well as providing opportunities and encouragement for sharing their thoughts, ideas and feelings through a variety of activities in art, music, movement, dance, role-play, and design and technology.

In planning and guiding children’s activities across all areas of learning, it is expected that practitioners should reflect on the different ways that children learn to support them in their planning. The EYFS suggests there are three characteristics of effective teaching and learning and I would argue that these should underpin the mathematical activities we plan for our young learners. Mathematical activities should be designed so that children are:

• playing and exploring – whilst engaged in mathematical activity children investigate and experience things. They learn to ‘have a go’. This will support them in becoming resilient learners and developing a view of mathematics as something you can explore for yourself rather than be informed about.
• learning actively, concentrating and motivated enough to keep on trying if they encounter difficulties. They should also be encouraged to enjoy their achievements and those of their friends.
• creating and thinking critically. The mathematics should give children opportunities to develop their own ideas, to make links between ideas and to develop strategies for solving problems.

This approach above is recommended by the government in England. How does this compare with other countries? The curriculum documents from the New Zealand government suggest that mathematics teaching should be seen as a process of inquiry, stating that, “Teaching as inquiry is a useful and integral part of everyday teaching practice” (Education Review Office, 2011). These guidelines remind practitioners that teaching through inquiry is not linear. They also serve as a reminder that we often vastly underestimate young learners’ concentration spans. If children are learning through self- and peer-inspired play they can remain focused for long periods of time. This reflects the individual needs of each child as a unique learner. In the New Zealand curriculum this image of each child as a unique learner is highlighted in the document described above which presents the underlying principles of teaching as inquiry. The document opens with these lines:

Ko te Tamaiti te Pūtake o te Kaupapa The Child – the Heart of the Matter

Moving back to the UK, the Forest School Association in the UK draws inspiration from a movement in Scandinavia which uses the outdoors and the natural environment as inspiration for learning. The Forest School view of learners reflects the overarching principles of the EYFS you were introduced to earlier as well as arguing for all learners’ entitlement to a rich learning environment. All learners (and all participants in education are seen as learners) are viewed as:

1. Equal, unique and valuable.
2. Competent to explore & discover.
3. Entitled to experience appropriate risk and challenge.
4. Entitled to choose,...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Preface
• SECTION 1 Supporting children's mathematical development
• SECTION 2 Activities to develop confident young mathematicians
• SECTION 3 Appendices
• Index