What does it mean to be three? by Jennie Lindon

Author:Jennie Lindon
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: EYFS, three, parents, development, guidance, practitioners, education, early year, Early Years Foundation Stage
ISBN: 9781907241802
Publisher: Andrews UK Limited 2012
Published: 2012-05-28T00:00:00+00:00

Once practitioners have a clear idea of what early mathematical thinking and actions look like, then the most likely consequence is that adults spot this buzz of learning happening all around them.

Susan Morton described an action research project in a Fife nursery class in Scotland. The team wished to improve their practice supporting children of three to five years of age in their understanding of number and other mathematical concepts. The nursery team made some progress by offering adult-initiated number activities which the children enjoyed. But closer observation of child-initiated activities showed that a great deal of early maths was going on naturally through children’s freely chosen play and conversation - counting out loud and using numbers in the writing area, exploration of spatial relationships and awareness of shape. It was also noticed, however, that this learning through freely chosen play experiences had not been recognised much at all by staff, nor had it usually been recorded in the children’s profiles. The team seemed to have the misapprehension - that I have encountered also in some English settings - that observations were mostly to be made during adult-initiated and adult-led activities.

The three main, and very useful, conclusions of the Fife project were that:

Children’s number and other mathematical understanding improved when their self-chosen play experiences were used, in a respectful way by practitioners, as opportunities to extent the knowledge of individual children. Practitioners worked from children’s current understanding.

Children’s skills were best improved with repeated opportunities to practise them - for good reasons. It made sense to children to use counting out of items at snack time, counting each other at special group times and to use positional vocabulary outdoors and in their gym activities.

Finally, it was very effective for practitioners to show children that the adults used numbers either in talking and/or in writing. Children happily copied the grown-ups and did not need any persuasion to do so.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.