RM Winter 2016 FLIP

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Reading Matters
Research Matters
Reading Matters | Volume 16 • Winter 2016 | |11|
Meaningful Math:
How Children’s Literature Can Pave theWay
Joy Myers, James Madison University
Abstract —Helping students comprehend text and develop a love of
learning are two fundamental goals of educators everywhere. The
establishment of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) challenges
classroom teachers to closely examine their current pedagogical
teaching practices in literacy and across all subject areas. Teachers
are altering their instruction to fit the new curricular standards as
outlined by each state and utilizing a wide variety of genres with the
goal of simultaneously increasing student motivation, engagement
and achievement. This study highlights a first grade teacher’s quest
to pique her students’ interest in math by incorporating one of
the children’s favorite parts of the day - reading picture books.
Meaningful Math: How Children’s
Literature Can Pave theWay
“Is math over yet?”This was a common question posed by
Annie (all names are pseudonyms), a first grader who did not enjoy
math time in my classroom. On a typical day, she wandered over
to the bookshelf instead of towards the various manipulatives
that I placed strategically around the room. At the time, I thought
I was engaging students like Annie by having math centers that
challenged various skill levels. The students worked at their own
pace practicing specific concepts while I met with small groups.
Annie, however, was not interested, engaged or impressed with
all of my hard work. She loved books and wanted to read during
mathematics time. As I looked around the room, I realized that I was
missing an opportunity to make math meaningful because although
students were busy working, they were not talking, reading or
writing about math. Even worse, I suddenly saw that my students
were not connecting mathematical concepts to their everyday life.
What could I do to help students like Annie? I had a bucket of
mathematics books separated from the other book tubs in my
room, but we did not typically work with these texts during math
time. Would Annie like those books? Howmany other students
in my class preferred reading time to mathematics? Although I
knew that reading choices for young children tended to be skewed
toward fiction texts, particularly in the early grades (Duke, 2004;
Moss & Newton, 2002), I had never thought about math books as
a text option that might engage my students and help me teach
math concepts. These wonderings led me to a teacher research
project focused on how the use of children’s literature impacted
my students’understanding and opinions of math. My work draws
on case study methodology (Stake 1995), which assisted me in
answering my research question by focusing on the experiences
of several students and how the use of math picture books
influenced howmeaningful math became for them. By sharing
my journey of conducting research in my classroom and what I
learned frommy students, I hope to encourage other teachers to
embrace the possibilities that math picture books have to offer.
Young Children and Genre
Theory, research and professional wisdom indicate that
students learn better if their learning can be contextualized
and authentically motivated (Duke, Caughlan, Juzwik & Martin,
2012). Using a wide range of genres can do this because a
variety of texts can broaden the curiosity of children and help
present familiar things in new ways, which can connect reading
to the real world (Hartman, 2002). Genre diversity is prevalent
throughout the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) as a way
to build a foundation for college and career readiness. “Students
must read widely and deeply from among a broad range of
high quality, increasingly challenging literacy and informational
texts (CCSS, 2010, p. 10). Educators can support young children’s
experiences with different genres by weaving explicit scaffolds
for these texts into the fabric of their daily literacy instruction.
Researchers promote the use of children’s literature to
support learning math concepts (Bryan & Mason, 2012;
Courtrade, Lingo, Karp, & Whitney, 2013). Haury (2001) writes
a common thread among teachers who choose to incorporate
children’s literature into their math instruction is they “provide
vicarious mathematical experiences based on real problems
or situations of interest to teachers and students” (p. 5). In
addition to contextualizing learning, increased exposure to a
variety of genres in the early grades may also make children
better readers and writers of those genres (Wixson, 2005).
When examining genres and math picture books, teachers
have a variety to choose from including informational text,
narrative nonfiction, realistic fiction, and fantasy just to name
a few. In addition to choosing the type of text, educators must
determine how to integrate the texts into their instruction.
Context of the Study
This study took place in a K-8 school located in a midsize
city in the Southeast. At the time, I was in my fifth year of
teaching and I was curious how the use of children’s literature
would impact my students’ understanding and opinions of
math. Thus, I began a yearlong journey of revamping my math
instruction where traditional teaching had been the norm.
In previous years, I had relied heavily on math textbooks and
the accompanying worksheets to teach concepts. Although the
students used manipulatives to help them solve problems, math
time in my classroom was much less engaging than other parts of
the day and I struggled to make math meaningful. My first grade
math class had fourteen students, nine boys and five girls. The
class reflected the lack of ethnic diversity at the school with all
students being Caucasian, but the socioeconomic status of the