Week Nine Readings

Week Nine’s Theme

So it seems I got my weekly themes mixed up somewhere around week seven, therefore this week’s theme will be a return to User:

How do very young children pragmatically use and apply the purposes, structures and features of early literacy and numeracy concepts through their play and everyday life experiences? 

As I described in week six this theme is all about teaching and learning about literacy and numeracy through everyday play activities, and connections to the real world. For me, the difference between this theme of User and the more recent theme of being a Text Participant (weeks seven and eight) is that as Users children learn, experience, and develop through everyday play, and the teacher or educator makes this learning and activities relevant to literacy and numeracy, and expands on the learning, experiences, and developments in children. As a Text Participant, children and students engage with and make their own meaning and connections to other areas of learning and real life settings. Text Participation is student and child initiated, and about the child making his or her own meaning from the learning and experience. For this reason, I chose to return to User as I believe seeing how we, as educators, can expand on children’s play to teach literacy and numeracy is important. 

Both readings this week have a focus on emergent learning. Emergent learning in literacy and numeracy is about immersing children in literate and numerate experiences and surrounding them with literate and numerate materials from birth (Geist, 2009; Fields, Groth & Spangler, 2008). This requires educators, as well as parents, to encourage, adapt, and support children’s play in areas filled with literacy and numeracy, and to allow children to engage with and learn from these materials and settings. 

Both of the readings this week were chosen because they were the in the compulsory textbook for this semester under the User category. The desire to use the textbook I spent a fair amount of money on, combined with the need to find quick readings, as well as the assumption that the compulsory topic would have worthwhile, educational texts were the reasons for choosing these readings. These reasons were less substantial than in previous weeks, however, when I looked at these readings I found that both had very interesting, relevant and basic examples and explanations of ideas and concepts that were really helpful for my understanding and learning.

Reading One 

Geist, E. (2009). Children and Mathematics: A Natural Combination. In Children Are Born Mathematicians: Supporting Mathematical Development, Birth to Age 8 (pp. 1-33). Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson Education Inc.  

This reading, while chosen for less than substantial reasons was particularly helpful in furthering my understanding of emergent numeracy, as well how to link previous literacy development themes to numeracy. 

The four most significant aspects of this reading for me were the three principles of teaching mathematics, the discussion about emergent numeracy, the importance of teaching children as mathematicians, and the “3E” approach. 

The Three Principles

After the chapter introduction, Geist outlined three main principles for teaching mathematics. These three Principles are reasonably self-explanatory, however, I have also included what I believed to be a significant quote from the explanations of each principle. 

Principle One – Thinking about the problem, not the answer, is what is most important

“Children need to understand that correct answers do not come from a teacher or a textbook, but rather from logical deduction” (Geist, 2009, p. 3).

Principle Two – Process is more important than product

“Our goal in teaching young children mathematics should be to help them achieve a deep understanding of the complex numerical relationships that underlie the answers” (Geist, 2009, p. 3).

Principle Three – Answers come from a logical certainty, not an authority figure

“The danger along the way is when adults discourage thinking and problem solving in favour of memorization and recitation” (Geist, 2009, p. 4).

These three principles emphasise the importance of developing problem solving, confident and inquisitive learners. They also emphasise child-initiated exploration and learning as more important than teacher based facts and repetition. All of this links to previous week’s ideas and themes, as well as my own desire to educate through play, and child directed learning. 

Emergent Numeracy

Geist then discussed emergent numeracy, as a similar concept to emergent literacy, stating that ‘emergent mathematics is a term we will use to describe how children construct mathematics from birth and continuing throughout the life of the person through a combination of cognitive development and interaction with their environment’ (2009, p. 4). Linking in with previous weeks’ (five and six) literacy discussions, Geist argues that many numeracy concepts cannot, and should not be taught directly to children, but should emerge from within the child instead, and that educators should adapt and change their teaching practice to meet the different learning needs and interests of children (2009).  

Teaching Children as Mathematicians

In line with his three principles for teaching mathematics, Geist argues the importance of teaching children as mathematicians, with these six methods as guidelines:

• Mathematicians often work for a time on a single problem
• Mathematicians collaborate with their colleagues and study the work of others
• Mathematicians must prove for themselves that their solution is correct and so should children
• The problems that mathematicians work on are complex
• Mathematicians get satisfaction from the problem-solving process and take pride in their solutions
• Mathematicians use unsuccessful attempts as stepping-stones to solutions

The ideas of emergent numeracy and children as natural mathematicians have greatly increased my awareness of preschool children’s numeracy abilities and understanding, as well as lessened my fears of developing numerate preschoolers. By understanding that numeracy is emergent, and that educators can increase and develop children’s natural mathematical abilities by providing numerate materials and settings, I have furthered my understanding that teaching does not have to be direct. Indirect teaching, and the manipulating of materials and settings to encourage certain types of play and specific themes in play is beginning to emerge as an important and significant way of teaching preschool children in my mind. 

The “3E” Approach

The chapter finished with a discussed of the “3E” Approach, with the 3E’s representing Environment, Experience, and Education as describe in the below table:

Infants and Toddlers	Environment
Preschool and Kindergarten	Experience
1st-3rd Grade	Education

In the infant and toddler stage, the importance of Environment and shaping the Environment to include meaningful numeracy materials and settings is discussed. During the preschool and kindergarten years, shaping and allowing numerate Experiences allowing children to be immersed in numeracy is important for emergent numeracy. Teacher-directed and child-centred Education is the emphasis in the early school years. 

The 3E Approach was useful in shaping my understanding of teaching numeracy to younger children. The ability to create a numeracy rich environment, and then provide numerate experiences to children instead of directly teaching them numeracy allows for more ideas, concepts, and learning experiences I can provide children with, especially under the age of four. 

Reading Two

Fields, M. V., Groth, L.A. & Spangler, K. L. (2008). Literacy Develops Through Play and Experiences. In Let’s Begin Reading Right: A Developmental Approach to Emergent Literacy (6^th ed., pp. 48-76). Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson Education Inc. 

The analysis of this reading will be much smaller than that of the previous reading, not because the reading was less significant, but because the most important parts of this reading for me are simpler to describe and link to teaching. 

This reading focussed mostly on how everyday play experiences can be used to develop and expand on literacy knowledge, abilities and understanding, a topic I have also covered in previous weeks (six and eight).  What was significant about this week’s reading for me, however, was the detailed explanations and analysis of what specific types of play are, and how they can be used to further a child’s understanding of literacy. Fields et al. (2008) discussed how exploratory play can be used to provide new meaning to oral and written languages relating to children’s experiences, and can create personal meaning in texts relating to these experiences. Pretend play can incorporate many different forms of writing (such as shopping lists and notes taken during a phone call), as well as oral communication practice. Block play, as also discussed in week six, can enhance classification abilities, motor skills, and thinking abilities. Sidewalk chalk, as well as road signs and other signs and symbols can be incorporated into active play. 

The detailed discussion about different types of play allowed me to gain a better understanding about what exactly is incorporated into these types of play, which will allow me to classify them better when observing children. The discussion about how literacy is involved in these types of play was also interesting. 

Another significant part of this reading was the discussion about experiences and how experiences can encourage emergent literacy. The use of experiences discussed past, present, and future experiences. Past experiences include those children bring into the classroom such as experiences from home, community and social life, as well as previous educational experiences. Present and future experiences include those teachers give, and plan to give, to children, such as excursions. Experiences involve real-world settings and connections, which as I have discussed in previous weeks (five and six), is important for teaching both literacy and numeracy. Making connections to learning and real world settings and interests is a vital part of my teaching identity.