Here we have chosen to analyse a section from The Cambridge Primary Mathematics, Learner’s Book 2 (Moseley and Reese 2014). It is an ambitious textbook launched as “a supplementary resource that consolidates and reinforces mathematical learning alongside the Cambridge Primary Mathematics Teacher’s Resource 2”. At the bottom of each page there is information that relates to a “core activity”. The resource is “dedicated to helping schools develop learners who are confident, responsible, reflective, innovative and engaged” (Introduction page). In the following we shall here look closely at two pages, the one about Patchwork, the other about Balls, and in this, we focus on the interaction between text resources used.

1 Interaction Between Text Resources

At the top of the page about Patchwork there is text that directly leads the reader into the visual illustrations (“Look at the pictures”), followed by the questions: “What can you see?” and “Talk about what you can see.” Here we can immediately see the intentions behind the book: look, reflect, think, and talk about it. Fig. 11.1.

Fig. 11.1
figure 1

Patchwork. Cambridge Primary Mathematics Learner’s Book 2 (Moseley and Reese 2014, p. 72, with permission from Cambridge University Press)

Full size image

The following text concentrates on squares and triangles, of the same or different size. However, by just looking at the page, it is not evident what the purpose is, and this shows clearly enough that the book is to be seen as a complementary resource to the teacher’s introduction and instructions.

With this in mind, let us have a closer look at the text. In the upper left illustration we notice squares with lines, waves, and dots. The illustration in the middle is focused on squares and triangles, while the one to the right also contains some kind of extra information in the form of wave-like patterns (fishes or eels with eyes?). This extra information (lines, waves, dots, and patterns) might distract the focus on squares and triangles. From the book alone, then, it is not clear that you as a pupil should train to make comparisons between different geometrical forms. It also seems unclear what to do with this information, since there is no explicit instruction that asks you to do what the two pupils (at the middle/right illustration) are doing.

The following page about Balls seems to be even more complicated (Fig. 11.2).

Fig. 11.2
figure 2

Balls. Cambridge Primary Mathematics Learner’s Book 2 (Moseley and Reese 2014, p. 72, with permission from Cambridge University Press)

Full size image

This page starts with a “block graph”, under which we find a basket with balls of different sizes and colors. These illustrations are then accompanied by a number of questions. But let us start with the illustrations. What might be a bit confusing is that there are no clear links between the colors of the bars in the graph and the colors of the balls you can see. So, after a while you perhaps think that the graphs are not about how many balls there are of each sort, even though the word “balls” under the graph may indicate this. Color is also a textual resource, and thus carries information. In this specific case, however, it might be confusing since you cannot see all the balls in the basket to which the graph refers: one light red ball (not four), one green ball (not five) two purple balls (not three), but two yellow ones (as in the graph).

One of the following questions is: “Which type of ball do you think is shown by the red bar?” You may even wonder if this question is linked to the following one: “Which ball bounces the highest and which ball bounces the least?” With these questions we have left the mathematical definitions, and the textbook here refers to the reader’s own (culturally based) empirical experience or knowledge. If you do not have this knowledge, you are left to guesses only.

In sum, we could say that a rather reduced and focused text like this one contains a number of possible challenges. It therefore seems important that the teacher discusses some of the missing linkages between the written text and the visual illustrations, makes clear what the task is about and perhaps also introduces some experimental work, so that the pupils instead of guessing could explore different qualities of different balls, and make up new graphs themselves.