Modelling written mathematical notations

Children observe and take in mathematics that is written and talked about 

in personally meaningful contexts, such an adult writing a shopping list or an order for a take-away. In pre-school and school teachers and educators can best replicate this by modelling mathematics for a group or the class in short spells.

• It is important to provide a reason or a purpose for what you are modelling, something the children can understand, such as “We need to let your mummy know when …” or “The school secretary needs to know how many …”. Such explanations provide the children with personally meaningful contexts.

• Modelling a range of ways of representing something mathematical over time, using different informal marks, signs or drawings, and occasionally standard mathematical symbols, helps provide children with a toolbox of possibilities.

• Over time, your models should extend to all areas of mathematics including data collection, shape and space and measures, and it is helpful to avoid representing only the standard forms, such as a bar chart to represent data collected.

• Invite the children to suggest how you could represent the information; they will often come up with some very original ideas!

• It is especially important that any modelling you do, is not followed by a mathematics lesson or activity. When this happens, children will only copy what you have just done, and lack any personal understanding of the reasons for what they have done.

• Young children will draw on the models you have provided, adapting some of them for their own purposes in ways that make real sense.

• Modelling in this way is very different to providing a single example which the children are expected to copy.

The main purpose of this modelling is to provide a range of signs, symbols, drawings and models that children can draw on and employ to communicate their mathematical thinking, when they need, and when them make genuine sense to them. This will gradually introduce them to the written language of mathematics, without risking imposing it. Rather than working against young children’s development, this emergent approach to mathematics is in tune with young children, and their understanding of the world – which naturally includes mathematics.

Focusing on graphicacy in early childhood education can reduce the likelihood of mathematical anxiety, and support children's confidence in mathematics (Sagasti Escalona, 2020).

Reference

Sagasti Escalona, M. (2020). Graphicacy: represent, record and communicate mathematical facts from an early age to avoid mathematical anxiety. Numeros, 105, (1-15).