 Carruthers,
E. & Worthington, M.
Children’s Mathematics: Making Marks, Making Meaning.
London: Sage.
Second Edition 2006
"Once in a while, a very long
while, there emerges a book about the education of young
children which has the power to transform how teachers
teach. The two which come to mind are Margaret Donaldson’s
‘Children’s Minds’ and Liz Waterland’s ‘Read With Me’, both
of which changed my – and I’m sure countless other teachers’
- thinking and practice. Children’s Mathematics: Making
Marks, Making Meaning (2nd edition) is such a book and
it comes not a moment too soon.
For far too long educators have
seriously under-estimated the challenge posed to young
children by symbol systems. The authors highlight the
parallels between the development of literacy and numeracy
through children’s graphicacy noting that the latter is more
difficult to chart. The development of children’s early
literacy has become increasingly well documented over the
past thirty years yet the symbol system of mathematics has
been far less well explored. The authors’ journey of
discovery begins exactly where it should, at the very
beginning, with an exploration of graphicacy, the primary
symbol system which is all too often underdeveloped in
practice yet from which the other two must grow. At long
last this void in research has been addressed and this book
provides practitioners with the wherewithal to nurture young
children’s introduction to mathematics and ease the
transition from informal to formal mathematics in a way that
is consistent with how they learn."
From Book Review:
Early Years: An
International Journal of Research and Development.
This publication is used as
a key text in the field of early years mathematics
education, and on courses on symbolic representation
relating to literacy and numeracy. |
