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Observing the Use of Gestures in Young Children’s Geometric Thinking

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Contemporary Research and Perspectives on Early Childhood Mathematics Education

Part of the book series: ICME-13 Monographs ((ICME13Mo))

Abstract

This chapter addresses children’s geometry thinking and learning in early childhood with a focus on the use of gestures. The chapter begins with the theoretical frameworks which underlie this work and some background information about geometry learning and gestures. The next parts of the chapter aim to give insight into the role of gestures in young children’s geometric thinking in different contexts. Specifically, three case studies are discussed which investigated different aspects of geometry understanding: two-dimensional shapes, composition and transformations of two-dimensional shapes and spatial concepts. Finally, a number of concluding remarks are discussed about the multiple uses and contributions of gestures in association with other semiotic resources in the evolution and communication of early understanding of shapes and space.

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Acknowledgements

A part of the work reported in this chapter was carried out in the project “The contribution of gestures in geometrical thinking development in early childhood” (2014–today) that is supported by a Program Grant from the “A.G. Leventis Foundation”.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Education, University of Cyprus, P.O. Box. 20537, 1678, Nicosia, Cyprus

    Iliada Elia

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  1. Iliada Elia
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Correspondence to Iliada Elia .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Education, University of Cyprus, Nicosia, Cyprus

    Iliada Elia

  2. Faculty of Human Sciences, Macquarie University, North Ryde, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

    Joanne Mulligan

  3. Department of Curriculum and Pedagogy, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

    Ann Anderson

  4. Department of Mathematics, University of Pisa, Pisa, Italy

    Anna Baccaglini-Frank

  5. Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, University of Education Karlsruhe, Karlsruhe, Germany

    Christiane Benz

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Elia, I. (2018). Observing the Use of Gestures in Young Children’s Geometric Thinking. In: Elia, I., Mulligan, J., Anderson, A., Baccaglini-Frank, A., Benz, C. (eds) Contemporary Research and Perspectives on Early Childhood Mathematics Education. ICME-13 Monographs. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-73432-3_9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-73432-3_9

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-73431-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-73432-3

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