Teaching Children Mathematics

Teaching Young Children Mathematics provides a comprehensive overview of mathematics instruction in the early childhood classroom. Taking into account family differences, language barriers, and the presence of special needs students in many classrooms throughout the U.S., this textbook situates best practices for mathematics instruction within the larger frameworks of federal and state standards as well as contemporary understandings of child development. Key topics covered include: developmental information of conceptual understanding in mathematics from birth through 3rd grade, use of national and state standards in math, including the new Common Core State Standards, information for adapting ideas to meet special needs and English Language Learners, literacy connections in each chapter, ‘real-world’ connections to the content, and information for family connections to the content.

With the composition of today's classroom in mind, this book approaches teaching and planning elementary mathematics by using methods that accommodate the diverse learning needs of any student having difficulties with basic math concepts. The authors use personal experience and research that supports a complete set of developmental concepts and skills to outline the effective development of mathematical concepts and skills. It stresses lesson planning that will result in learning, understanding, and retaining important concepts and skills. K-12 Special Education and General Education Teachers.

Using strengths-based approaches to support development in mathematics It’s time to re-imagine what’s possible and celebrate the brilliance multilingual learners bring to today’s classrooms. Innovative teaching strategies can position these learners as leaders in mathematics. Yet, as the number of multilingual learners in North American schools grows, many teachers have not had opportunities to gain the competencies required to teach these learners effectively, especially in disciplines such as mathematics. Multilingual learners—historically called English Language Learners—are expected to interpret the meaning of problems, analyze, make conjectures, evaluate their progress, and discuss and understand their own approaches and the approaches of their peers in mathematics classrooms. Thus, language plays a vital role in mathematics learning, and demonstrating these competencies in a second (or third) language is a challenging endeavor. Based on best practices and the authors’ years of research, this guide offers practical approaches that equip grades K-8 teachers to draw on the strengths of multilingual learners, partner with their families, and position these learners for success. Readers will find: • A focus on multilingual students as leaders • A strength-based approach that draws on students’ life experiences and cultural backgrounds • An emphasis on maintaining high expectations for learners’ capacity for mastering rigorous content • Strategies for representing concepts in different formats • Stop and Think questions throughout and reflection questions at the end of each chapter • Try It! Implementation activities, student work examples, and classroom transcripts With case studies and activities that provide a solid foundation for teachers’ growth and exploration, this groundbreaking book will help teachers and teacher educators engage in meaningful, humanized mathematics instruction.

With a focus on children's mathematical thinking, this second edition adds new material on the mathematical principles underlying children's strategies, a new online video that illustrates student teacher interaction, and examines the relationship between CGI and the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics.

Children learn mathematics most effectively in contexts that are meaningful to them. Realizing the potential of these contexts for fostering young children's mathematical learning while nurturing and challenging them, requires knowledge of mathematics as well as of child development. Avoiding the debates surrounding hands-on learning vs. direct instruction, the author focuses on the value of different contexts for learning, and illustrates ways to genuinely engage children as active learners. The work is rich with examples of children's interactions with each other and with adults as they utilize and extend their understanding of mathematics. Examples and guidelines for developing lessons and activities will be useful to educators and parents. Chapters explore how we underestimate young children's mathematical capabilities; how appropriate sequencing of learning and building on prior knowledge will enhance understanding; what teachers, including parent-teachers, need to know; and high-stakes testing. This is a work that brings together the connections between knowing the basics and constructing knowledge in accessible and practical ways.

It can be difficult to recognize that in spite of the precision and power of mathematics, both the verbal and symbolic language it uses have the same qualities of ambiguity as every other human language. In The Role of Language in Teaching Children Math, Dr. Kastner reveals strategies to overcome the fact that traditional and current mathematics curricula, beginning in the early grades, fail to provide students with the conceptual understanding required to advance to levels where the delight of geometry and calculus become accessible. Kastner's clear prose and organic organization assists teachers, parents, and students to untangle abstract meanings required for mastery in the field of mathematics. "As teachers of mathematics, it is critical that we continually foster meaningful mathematical conversations with children in order for them to develop a deep understanding of the math. Bernice's extraordinary, thought-provoking book is a primer on how the language we use to teach and talk about mathematics can either obscure or illuminate the profound beauty of mathematics. The Role of Language in Teaching Children Math should be read by any serious teacher of mathematics." --Debby Halperin, Recipient of the Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics Teaching 2014

Studies of teachers in the U.S. often document insufficient subject matter knowledge in mathematics. Yet, these studies give few examples of the knowledge teachers need to support teaching, particularly the kind of teaching demanded by recent reforms in mathematics education. Knowing and Teaching Elementary Mathematics describes the nature and development of the knowledge that elementary teachers need to become accomplished mathematics teachers, and suggests why such knowledge seems more common in China than in the United States, despite the fact that Chinese teachers have less formal education than their U.S. counterparts. The anniversary edition of this bestselling volume includes the original studies that compare U.S and Chinese elementary school teachers’ mathematical understanding and offers a powerful framework for grasping the mathematical content necessary to understand and develop the thinking of school children. Highlighting notable changes in the field and the author’s work, this new edition includes an updated preface, introduction, and key journal articles that frame and contextualize this seminal work.

A compendium of more than 240 classroom-tested lessons, this essential resource helps teachers build student understanding and skills and understand how children best learn math. In this third edition, Marilyn Burns has completely revised the first section to reflect what she has learned over the years from her classroom experience with students and her professional development experience with teachers. This section has also been expanded to address these important topics: teaching math vocabulary, incorporating writing into math instruction, linking assessment and instruction, and using children¿s literature to teach key math concepts. In an entirely new section, Marilyn addresses a wide range of questions she has received over the years from elementary and middle school teachers regarding classroom management and instructional issues.