Abstract
This paper examines ways to engage young children in constructing and interpreting narratives to develop their understanding of parity. It reports on a teaching intervention that was developed over three research cycles of a classroom-based design experiment, and focuses on the last of these cycles. The teaching intervention set out to investigate how young children (5–6-year-olds) can be supported to draw on narrative in their explanations of whether a whole number less than 20 is odd or even. Evidence of the effectiveness of the intervention is provided through comparison of children’s performance on pre- and post-tests in the form of semi-structured individual interviews. Also, authentic examples are provided of how children utilised their power of ‘imagining and expressing’ to tell stories of whether a whole number is odd or even, using either a counting, partitive, or quotitive model for division. Implications for research and practice are discussed in light of these findings.
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Notes
The first author implemented the interventions in all research cycles, but she was not the usual teacher for any of the classes who participated in the study.
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Roberts, N., Stylianides, A.J. Telling and illustrating stories of parity: a classroom-based design experiment on young children’s use of narrative in mathematics. ZDM Mathematics Education 45, 453–467 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11858-012-0474-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11858-012-0474-2