Children's Mathematical Graphics (CMG) is the term we originated to

describe the marks, signs and symbols that children freely (and often spontaneously) choose to use to communicate their mathematical thinking.

Our use of the word 'graphics' includes scribbles, lines, dots, drawings, tally

marks, arrows, crosses, ticks, children’s early (emergent) writing, and

invented and standard abstract mathematical symbols. These marks, signs

and symbols originate in very young children’s marks and signs for drawing

(e.g., Lancaster, 2003; 2014). We have included the word Children's to

emphasise the significance of the children's role in their mathematics.

     Children's Mathematical Graphics are not a scheme or a step-by-step

approach and need no special programmes, interventions, instruments or published materials. They are founded on our belief in the amazing capacity, creativity and strengths of young children to make meanings and communicate their thinking in ways that make sense to them through holistic, social experiences and through their emergent learning.

     Children's Mathematical Graphics represent only a part of the mathematics curriculum, but they are nevertheless an important part, since 'written' mathematics is integral to mathematics throughout the school system. Our extensive research into Children's Mathematical Graphics, and our numerous children's examples are all new to science.

Graphicacy

Pretend play and Children's Mathematical Graphics

Note: Children’s mathematical signs and representations are variously termed external representations; inscriptions; notations; cultural, psychological or symbolic tools; emergent models; schematisations; visual signs, and (from Worthington & Carruthers, 2003), Children’s Mathematical Graphics.

Aldrich, F. K., & Sheppard, L., (2000). Graphicacy: the fourth 'R'? Primary Science Review, 64, 8-11.

Anning, A. (2003). Pathways to the graphicacy club: the crossroad of how and school. Journal of Early Childhood Literacy 3 (1), 5-35.

Carruthers, E., & Worthington, M. (2006). Children's Mathematics: Making Marks, Making Meanings. (2nd ed.). Sage.

Sagasti Escalona, M. (2019). Graphicacy: Another way of thinking and Communicating.

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

Lancaster, L. (2003). Moving into literacy: How it all begins. In N. Hall, J. Larson & J. Marsh (Eds.). Handbook of Early Childhood Literacy. Sage.

Lancaster, L. (2007). Representing the ways of the world: How children under three start to use syntax in graphic signs. Journal of Early Childhood Literacy 7 (2).

Lancaster, L. (2014). The emergence of symbolic principles: The distributions of mind in early sign making. Biosemiotics, 7(1), 19-47.

Worthington, M. & Carruthers, E. (2003). Children's Mathematics: Making Marks, Making Meanings. (1st ed.). Paul Chapman.

Worthington. M. (2009). Fish in the water of culture: Signs and symbols in young children's drawing. Psychology of Education Review 33(1), 37-46.

Worthington, M., & van Oers, B. (2017). Children's social literacies: Meaning making and the emergence of graphic symbols in pretence. Journal of Early Childhood Literacy 24(1), 1-29.

Worthington M. (2020). Mathematical signs and their cultural transmission in pretend play. In A. MacDonald, Danaia. L, & S. Murphy (Eds.), STEM education across the learning continuum (pp. 45-65). Springer Nature.