Mathematics Learning in Early Childhood

Some blog followers may be interested in a recent discussion-list post of the above title [Hake (2009). The abstract reads:

ABSTRACT: “Mathematics Learning in Early Childhood: Paths Toward Excellence and Equity" [Cross et al. (2009)] may be of interest to math/science educators. Since, during July 2009, there had been over 70 Math-Teach posts on the thread "Kamii's Articles on Algorithms in Arithmetic,” I searched for “Kamii” on the online version of Cross et al. (2009)] to find references to: (a) “Young Children Reinvent Arithmetic: Implications of Piaget's Theory” [Kamii & Housman (2000)], (b) “Measurement of length: The need for a better approach to teaching” [Kamii & Clark (1997], and (c) “The development of logico-mathematical knowledge in block building activity at ages 1-4” [Kamii, Miyakawa, & Kato (2004)].

According to her website, Constance Kamii studied under Jean Piaget, on and off for 15 years. Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constance_Kamii states that Kamii's ideas influenced the NCTM standards.

Incidentally, judging from the end-of-chapter references in Cross et al., early childhood mathematics is currently more the province of psychologists, cognitive scientists, and education specialists than mathematicians. However, mathematicians might have much to offer, witness the contributions of physicist Robert Karplus to early childhood science instruction.

To access the complete 25 kB post please click on http://tinyurl.com/luayng .

REFERENCES

Cross, C.T., T.A. Woods, & H. Schweingruber, eds. 2009. MathematicsLearning in Early Childhood: Paths Toward Excellence and Equity, Committee on Early Childhood Mathematics; National Academies Press; online at http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php record_id=12519#toc.

Hake, R.R. 2009. “Mathematics Learning in Early Childhood,” online on the OPEN! AERA-L archives at http://tinyurl.com/luayng and also on the Math-Teach archives at http://mathforum.org/kb/thread.jspa?threadID=1969919&tstart=0 . Post of 27 Jul 2009 16:02:41-0700 to AERA-L, Math-Teach, Net Gold, & PhysLnrR. In addition the abstract was transmitted to various discussion lists.