RM Winter 2016 FLIP

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Reading Matters
Research Matters
| 12| Reading Matters | Volume 16 • Winter 2016 |
students ranged considerably. These students had the highest
scores on their end of year assessments from kindergarten
and thus were selected to work in my “advanced”math class;
essentially I was teaching second grade concepts to first graders.
At the beginning of the year, I administered a baseline survey
to all students asking twenty true/false questions such as: I am sure
that I can learn math; Doing well in math is important to me; and I can
get good grades in math. This survey provided insightful information
about how students view themselves as mathematicians and
provided clues as to how I could better meet their needs. Results
of the survey revealed that two students thought that boys were
better at math than girls, 12 students said they could get good
grades in math, and 13 students said they were sure that they
could learn math. All 14 students said that doing well in math was
important to them and that doing well in math was important
to their parents. This helps paint a picture of my first grade math
students, some of whom you will learn more about later.
Book Selection
According to the Common Core State Standards, instructional
math time should focus on four areas: (1) operations and algebraic
thinking; (2) numbers and operations in base 10; (3) measurement
and data; and (4) geometry (CCSS, 2010). By carefully selecting
children’s literature that illuminated the mathematical concepts
I was teaching, I hoped students would have the opportunity
to not only further their understanding, but become more
interested in the math concepts. My plan was to read math
books aloud as part of my lesson, similar to what I did during
shared reading in our literacy block. I started reading journal
articles about incorporating literature and math. I read about the
many ways educators use pictures books to teach math (Bryan
& Mason, 2012). Some studies focused on the specific impact
of a particular math picture book (see Whitin, 2008; Shatzer,
2008). I also learned that literature can motivate students to
learn, provide a meaningful context for math (Whiten &Wilde,
1992), and that children enjoyed math more when exposed to
mathematical related stories and discussions (Hong, 1996).
As I chose books, I relied on recommended book lists from
Whiten andWilde’s (1992) Read Any Good Math Lately? According to
Atkinson, Matusevich and Huber (2009), there is limited information
about ways to choose trade books for mathematics instruction.
However, Hunsader (2004) and Hellwig, Monroe and Jacobs
(2000) suggest examining the content, the visual appeal, and if
the story compliments the mathematics. Using a list of children’s
literature, I began thinking about how to incorporate them into
my teaching and how I was going to examine their impact.
As I looked at the various texts, I began thinking more about
genre. Researchers recommend providing children with multiple
and varied trade books (Powell & Nurnberger-Haag, 2015). I found
it easy to determine the genre of some math picture books such
as Money (Crib, 1990). It is an informational text because the
primary purpose of the text is to convey information with the
help of text features such as headings and particular vocabulary.
The same is true for A Chair for my Mother (Williams, 1982). It is
classified as realistic fiction because it is a story that could have
actually occurred in a believable setting. However, other genres
were less clear. For example The Greedy Triangle (Burns, 1994)
has illustrations and tells the story of a triangle who visits a local
shapeshifter to add angles to his shape until he is completely
transformed. This seems like it would fit in fantasy, yet the purpose
of the text is to teach mathematical concepts. I later learned that
many of the texts I used in this study fall into the category of
dual-purpose texts (Donovan & Smolkin, 2001) meaning they have
the purpose of telling a fictional story and to convey information.
Table 1 highlights some of the texts I used in this study.
Table 1. Math Texts
Book Title and Author Genre CCSS
Pigs will be pigs: Fun
with math and money
Fantasy Operations and
Algebraic Thinking
Jim and the beanstalk
(Raymond Briggs)
Fantasy Measurement & Data
A chair for my mother
(Vera Williams)
Realistic Fiction Operations and
Algebraic Thinking
“Smart”
(Shel Silverstein)
Realistic Fiction Operations and
Algebraic Thinking
Money
(Eyewitness Books)
(Joe Crib)
Informational Operations and
Algebraic Thinking
If you made a million
(David Schwartz)
Fantasy Number & Operations
in Base Ten
Howmuch is million?
(David Schwartz)
Fantasy Number & Operations
in Base Ten
The greedy triangle
(Marilyn Burns)
Fantasy Geometry
Method
Keeping in mind my question of how children’s literature could
impact students’ understandings and feelings towards math,
I collected several different types of classroom data including
a math survey, student reflections, teacher reflections, and
thumbs-up/down slips. The math survey, which I highlighted
earlier, helped me understand students’ interests and how they
really felt about math. I also collected student reflections. At
the beginning of the year, the first grade students had trouble
writing their thoughts about the books I shared. It was difficult
at times to understand whether or not the books helped them
understand the concepts. Therefore, I decided to give each
student a slip of paper after we read a book during math class.
They would circle a thumb pointing up (if the book helped them
understand a concept), a thumb pointing down (if the book
did not help them), or a thumb pointing sideways (if the book
neither helped or hurt their understanding of a concept). Several
conversations were necessary to explain to the students that I
was not looking to see if they liked the book. I really wanted to
know if the book helped them understand the math concept
better. My goal was to use these slips to help me assess the
effectiveness of using informational texts during math time.
As the year progressed, I moved away from the thumb slips and
instead the students chose between three prompts each time I
read a picture book during math, which helped them respond in