Research On The Usage And The Teaching Of The "Reading Materials" In The High School Mathematics Textbooks

Since2010, the High School Curriculum Reform has been popularizedin Sichuan Province, where the mathematics textbook being used isMathematics Textbook A (called the new textbook below) published by the People’sEducation Press. Compared with the original one used before the reform, great changeshave been made in the new textbook, in the aspects of content, form, framework, etc.,especially its reading materials making an impression with a larger quantity and a moreinteresting content. What are the purpose and the significance of making such a bigchange in reading material? Have all teachers and students understood the editors’intention? What is the status of the reading materials in the eyes of all teachers andstudents? How do they utilize the reading materials? What kinds of reading materialsdo they like? What functions do the reading materials have? How should they beapproached? With the above questions, a research was conducted as follows:At first, a questionnaire was filled in by50teachers and650students in No.2High School of Yibin County, Sichuan Province. The teachers were asked whether theyread the reading materials, whether they utilize the reading materials in their teachingand what their requirements for their students are in the reading materials. The studentswere asked whether they study the reading materials, what attitudes they hold, etc. Itwas realized in collecting and analyzing the original data that the usage of the readingmaterials in the school stays in bad condition, both parties paying little attention to andmaking little use of the reading materials.Then,9of the teachers and19of the students were randomly selected to beinterviewees to talk about what kinds of reading materials they like reading andutilizing and why they do not like the reading materials. In the light of the interviewresults, the reasons for influencing the usage of the reading materials were analyzed inthe aspects of the teachers, the students, the educational mechanism, the content of the reading materials, etc.Following the interview, the methods of documentary research and comparativeresearch were adopted to summarize the reading materials comprehensively: their titles,their content, their locations in the new and the original textbooks were tabulated andthe reading materials were, by comparison, classified into three categories－historiography, extended texts and practical application, in terms of whosecharacteristics the educational functions of the reading materials were elaborated.Finally, some strategies for teaching the reading materials, aiming at exerting theireducational functions, were proposed: to guide the students in their extracurricularreading in the form of outline, to integrate the extended texts into the classroomteaching, to utilize the practical application to carry through the research-orientedlearning, etc., each of which had been employed in the actual teaching practice,relatively good results being achieved.