Figure 6.2 In a bag – Cody
Cody was making meaning about putting things inside: in the language of schemas
we might say he was exploring containingand enclosure. First, he had drawn round
some objects, directly ‘re-presenting’ them on his paper. Then he put the paper with
the marks of the objects that were in the bag, inside the bag. The marks on paper
had been transformed into objects themselves and given new meaning. Kress advises
that such ‘successive transformations from one mode of representation to another
... need to be encouraged to do as an entirely ordinary and necessary part of human
development’ (Kress, 1997, p. 29).
We contend that teachers need to focus on all aspects of children’s meaning (here,
in terms of their mathematical meaning), through their ‘plethora of ways’ (Kress,
1997). And early mark-making needs to be viewed as just one facet of this profusion.
In her study of children’s meaning making in the home and nursery, Anning found
that ‘children could move fluidly from drawing to modelling to small figure play at
their own pace’. She writes ‘in nursery classes adults are less concerned with the
adult-led agenda (and) pre-determined outcomes’ (Anning, 2000, p. 12). Such pre-
determined objectives and outcomes in schools often militate against such fluidity
and multi-modal symbol-making in a variety of semiotic modes. As we have already
argued, early mathematical mark-making on paper is just one of the ‘hundred lan-
guages’ of young children (Malaguzzi, 1996).94 Children’s Mathematics8657part 1b.qxd 04/07/2006 18:14 Page 94