The Power of Picture Books in Teaching Math and Science

Lynn Columbia

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9781138077942
• eBook ISBN: 9781351813921
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

This book's 50-plus lessons-each based on a different picture book or story-will help classroom teachers build a foundation for teaching math, science, and social studies concepts to their students. Each lesson uses children's literature to make challenging, abstract concepts relevant to children's lives, inviting them to learn these concepts while responding to a story's illustrations, theme, characters, and plot. The lessons also demonstrate how teachers can use children's literature to meet national standards in math, science, and social studies. Chapters 1 through 5 set the stage for using picture books, discussing the effective, imaginative integration of literature into the classroom. Teachers will learn to create an environment that ensures that when children and books come together, the experience is enjoyable and thought provoking. Chapters 6 through 9 provide individual lessons, by grade level, with detailed activities based on specific books.

CHAPTER 1
The Magical World of Picture Books

Do you remember the stories of Madeline, Babar, Max and the Wild Things, Lorax, Corduroy, Eloise, Dr. De Soto, and Sam who does not like green eggs and ham? How about the story of Chester, the sleuth of a cat that suspects he has detected peculiar qualities of the family pet rabbit in Bunnicula (Howe & Howe, 1979), and Claudia Kincaid in From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler (Konigsburg, 1967) who tempts her rich little brother Jamie to accompany her as she runs away from home? More recently, you may have read about the adventures of David in No, David! (Shannon, 1998), Mary Alice Dowdel from A Year Down Yonder (Peck, 2000), Billie Jo in Out of the Dust (Hesse, 1997), and Tree-ear in A Single Shard (Park, 2001). All of these stories, for different reasons, touched our hearts; they all have connected with some aspect of our lives.

How do we explain the power these stories seem to hold? Furthermore, how can we use the power of stories to teach content area topics, particularly mathematics, science, and social studies where stories have not been explicitly linked to conceptual learning? In this chapter, we explore some of the reasons why we are attracted to stories, why we ought to use them, and how we as readers respond to stories as we help our students develop into readers, writers, and lifelong learners.

The Power of Stories

Not all readers may be able to articulate what makes a story good. However, we can certainly recognize a good story when it is told. Not all may agree on exactly what a good story is, but some characteristics of a good story make the reader want to tell the story to someone else.

We asked our students in children’s literature courses the question: “What makes a story a good one?” From their responses, we developed the following description of a good story:

A good story is creative, suspenseful, imaginative, meaningful, poetic, humorous, adventurous, vivid and colorful, mysterious, engaging, gripping, relaxing, touching, emotional, inspirational, conversational, easy to understand, and beautifully written. A good story also puts the readers inside the story, forces readers to think, encourages them to think about difficult and complex issues, and allows them to recall many good memories of literary experiences.

The power of stories in human life has been documented by many scholars (Bruner, 1986; McEwan & Egan, 1995; Wells, 1986). Wells (1986) writes, “Storying is one of the most fundamental means whereby human beings gain control over the world around them … storying is not a conscious and deliberate activity, but the way in which the mind itself works” (p. 197). Narratives mirror life and emotions, our own self presented in familiar and peculiar ways. “[S]tories do not simply contain knowledge, they are themselves the knowledge we want students to possess” (emphasis in original) writes Jackson (1995) to echo that sentiment.

Language of narratives, both oral and written, has a powerful impact on the lives of human beings. Most of us grew up listening to and telling stories from a very young age; the sense of story that we develop is an intimate part of ourselves. Children’s responses to narratives are natural, not forced. The power of stories, when combined with children’s instinct to make them their own, makes narratives one of the essential ways to teach and to learn. Using this power of stories through books to inspire, motivate, and relate to students as they learn content area topics in mathematics, science, and social studies, then, seems to be not only a natural but also an essential step. Picture books exploring mathematical, science, and social studies concepts are often an unexploited resource and a natural tool for developing mathematical power and scientific ways of thinking, as well as learning about different societies and cultures. As you will see throughout this book, we can effortlessly and effectively use these books to teach difficult and complex concepts to students in grades PreK to 8.

The Power of Picture Books

Picture books are probably the very first form of literature that children encounter as part of their literary experience. Picture books, named for their format rather than content, marry text with illustrations. Many times, a picture book’s text and illustrations do not stand alone; rather, each needs the other to complete the story. Surely, you have many picture books that you love and many reasons for loving them. You may love some for the brilliant stories; you may love others for the beautiful language. You may love some for the masterful illustrations; you may love some for the element of surprise or twist at the end of the book. From bright and bold picture books for the very young to highly sophisticated and articulate fiction and nonfiction picture books for older students, picture books satisfy a wide range of readers (even adults).

Picture books eloquently present concepts, both simple and complex, to readers of all levels. It is our intention in this text to highlight these quality books, particularly those that present mathematics, science, and social studies concepts in amazing, beautiful, and brilliant ways. For example, Paul Fleischman’s (1999) Weslandia is one such book. Wesley, an outcast from his social group, creates a civilization of his very own by planting a staple food crop in his backyard. The strange plant, which Wesley names “Swist,” is used to create everything that Wesley needs to maintain the newfound civilization. Games are created with the parts of the plant. Fragrant oil is extracted to sell to children in the neighborhood. From the woody bark, fiber is woven for garments. And of course, fruit from the plant is eaten. Wesley’s creativity extends to developing a new number system based on the number eight and a new language based on the 80-letter alphabet. The vivid illustrations are brilliant; they draw the reader into Weslandia. The idea underlying the creation of a new civilization is sophisticated and intelligent.

Reader Response Theory

Readers like different stories and even like the same stories for different reasons. Classic works of literature are banned by some, admired by others; your best friend really does not like the very book that changed your life; you cannot imagine why a particular book is chosen by your monthly book club; you disagree with your professor’s selections for the modern fiction class; and it baffles you to see a colleague pick a set of books for literature circles when you don’t necessarily see the literary merit of those books.

Literary theorists and scholars explain diverse responses to the same text with reader response theory. Essentially, the theory claims that the meaning of a text derives from the dynamic relationship between the reader and the text (Farrell & Squire, 1990; Fish, 1980; Rabinowitz, 1987; Rosenblatt, 1978, 1996). Reader response theory provides a variety of possible ways in which the reader contributes to the meaning-making process. This view of reading departs from the traditional definition in which the reader’s task is to simply figure out what the author means from the text. In this more traditional view, there is an assumption of authorial power, of one meaning that is to be extracted from the reading process. Reader response theory challenges this view to include readers as they construct meaning during the reading process.

ROSENBLATT’S TRANSACTIONAL THEORY

Rosenblatt (1978, 1996) was one of the earliest and perhaps most influential proponents of reader response theory. She proposes the idea that reading is “transactional” in nature and argues that the meaning is transacted between the reader and the text in a given context, as shown in Exhibit 1.1. The meaning that a reader constructs from reading a particular book for a given reason varies depending on who the reader is, what the reader is reading, and why or how that reading is done.

The reader

Readers vary in innumerable ways. Factors that impact the reader include gender, age, reading ability, ethnicity, religion, interest, attitude, and experiences with literature. Who we are determines our responses to the text as well as the meaning we construct from the text.

Surely, you already have many examples of these reader variations from your own literary experiences. One example that we can share as university and college educators is our students’ responses to children’s books they read. We often return to the books they read as children, and, as you can expect, the responses they generate from these familiar books range greatly. Some books with prior negative or neutral responses turn out to be huge hits; some elicit puzzlement regarding why they were the students’ childhood favorites. Some students finally understand the deeper meanings of some books; some find humor in the books for the very first time. Age, undeniably, affects the way we read and how we respond to books.

EXHIBIT1.1 Meaning is transacted between the reader and the text in a given context.

The text

What we read, too, influences our reader response. In the view of the transactional theory, the text is a counterpart to the reader, necessary in how the literary work comes alive (Karolides, 1997). Contrary to the traditional view of the text as an entity with a determinate meaning inscribed by the author, Rosenblatt (1978) sees the text as dynamic and fluid, requiring the reader to activate the signs. Both play a vital role as necessary ingredients in the process of reading.

A number of factors lead to text variations:

● the content included in the text

● the genre in which the content is presented

● the text structure used in writing

● the easiness or difficulty of the text to comprehend

● the way the author signifies the meaning based on his or her intentions

The text, composed of various particulars, does contribute to a reader’s unique meaning-making process.

The context

We define context in just as many ways. Self-selected reading experiences, for example, elicit different responses than assigned readings. Reading for pleasure rather than for information is yet another context variation. A teacher’s attitude about reading as well as her enthusiasm for a book or an author may also determine a particular reader response in the students.

Classroom implications of reader, text, and context variation

As discussed earlier, rea...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Preface
• 1 The Magical World of Picture Books
• 2 Mathematics, Science, and Social Studies: Learning Through Integration
• 3 Making Literacy Connections
• 4 Meeting Mathematics, Science, Social Studies, and Language Arts Standards
• 5 Getting Started in Your Classroom
• 6 Discovering Mathematics, Science, and Social Studies
• 7 Exploring Mathematics, Science, and Social Studies
• 8 Experiencing Mathematics, Science, and Social Studies
• 9 Investigating Mathematics, Science, and Social Studies
• Appendix
• Index