Children\'s Mathematics

The open classroom

Central to classrooms that support children’s own mathematical marks on paper, are

the conditions that foster this; the atmosphere that gives opportunities for children

to feel that they can put their own thinking on paper. The psychological environ-

ment is equally as important as the physical environment. What the child initiates

and makes sense of on her own or with other children is equally as valued as the

adult-directed or adult-led sessions. In an open classroom adults will encourage the

children’s initiatives. This encouragement is important for the child to feel strong

enough in herself to take further risks and opportunities.

Visual representations

There may be particular benefits from children’s deep involvement in drawing and

painting that they have chosen to do. Research conducted in Oxford and published

in 1980 (Sylva et al.) identified ‘high levels of cognitive challenge’ when the child’s

observed activity was: ‘novel, creative, imaginative, productive, cognitively

complex, involving the combination of several elements ... is deeply engrossed’

(Sylva et al.). We believe that it is significant that art (visual representation) was

found to have almost the highest level of cognitive challenge. Using the same rating

system in a class with 4–6 year olds, I found art achieved the highest level of cogni-

tive challenge of all activities in which children were engaged (Worthington, 1996b).

Being deeply engrossed or involved was also identified as important in studies by

Laevers (1993), (subsequently developed by Pascal and Bertram as the Effective Early

Learning project (EEL) in England, 1997), and linked to high levels of cognitive chal-

lenge and quality learning outcomes.

Multi-modality

Clearly children explore many ways to make meaning, through diverse contexts and

media. Multi-modal learningincludes speech, gestures, dens, piles of things, cut-outs,

junk models, drawings, languages, symbols and texts: meaning is created out of ‘lots

of different stuff’, (Kress, 1997). Learning environments that support children’s

meaning making need to include plenty of ‘stuff’; spaces and time in which to

explore and adults who value what the children do. Visiting Wingate Nursery in

County Durham, the artist Antony Gormley commented that it offered a ‘laboratory

of possibilities’ (personal conversation). The best settings for young children are not

like pristine art galleries but a combination of working studios or ‘laboratories of pos-

sibilities’ where children are in the process of exploring, investigating and creating

‘stuff’. In his publication Before Writing (1997), Kress outlines a social semiotic theory

of representation and communication in which he highlights a range of experiences

through which young children should be able to engage daily. Early Years settings

need to allow children free access to open-ended role play; to materials for creating

camps and dens; to lots of junk modelling and resources and tools to work with; art

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