A good friend of mine that goes by Big Bahama Mama on the internet, posted on my last post about math. I think that she brought up some good points, which I will get to, although it may take me a few more days to collect my thoughts and make it coherent.
I wish that more people would have posted ideas or responses that they had to Math Mama's ideas, but I'll take what I can get from BBM and Jamie.
A while back I heard via Jamie who heard via Keith Devlin (his current article at MAA.org) that there was a link between and preschool child's narrative abilities and their later abilities in mathematics. I thought that I would post a link to the actual study, which I haven't read all of the way through, but I plan to.
O'Neill, D. K., Pearce, M. J., & Pick, J. L. (2004) Predictive relations between aspects of preschool children’s narratives and performance on the Peabody Individualized Achievement Test - Revised: Evidence of a relation between early narrative and later mathematical ability. First Language, 24, 149-183.
I'll be referring back to this article a little in my next post about mathematics education.
1 comment:
Reading Math Mama's post, that seems an American view. Internationally, no one cares if the kid is happy doing math- the kid just does it and does well. When they did a study looking at enjoyment and success, there was no real correlation. Kids who hate math did well. If we want the kids to be mathematicians, then a love of math might be good. But if we are looking for basic proficiency, kids need to learn to suck it up.
As I tutor a lot of kids with a lot of problems, I wish they had to do a million worksheets memorizing basic concepts. Because I cannot teach them geometry when they are still working out problems with fractions. The more I deal with these kids, the more I am convinced that certain things need to be a part of you and without repetition, I don't see how kids are going to have that. Also, having those skills drilled into you makes it so much easier at higher levels, you are much more likely to develop a love for math.
Of course, I also spend my time exclusively with students who struggle, who didn't get it the standard way. We do use tons of manipulatives and try to see it in a bunch of different ways. I am dealing with mostly junior high, some high school which may also affect my opinion.
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