Action Research On Improving Children’s Focus Tendency In Mathematics By Reading Picture Books

Children’s spontaneous mathematical consciousness in daily environment has been widely concerned by foreign scholars,because it is a solid foundation for children’s active learning and perception of mathematics.Children with high spontaneous mathematical focus are more likely to notice the number phenomenon in their environment,which makes children more active in performing mathematical tasks.Preschool children’s high number of focus can predict the mathematical advantage in primary school,which has been widely confirmed by foreign research.However,the study of children’s spontaneous mathematical consciousness is very rare in China,so it is necessary to start this research,which is in line with the direction and goal of preschool education in China to focus on cultivating children’s learning quality and learning ability.In addition,foreign related research focuses on children’s spontaneous mathematical awareness of simple numbers and quantities,while the field of preschool education practice in China covers a wider range of mathematics.Therefore,it is also of cross-cultural significance to explore the spontaneous mathematical awareness of preschool children in China by using some research methods of foreign scholars.In this study,55 middle-class children in a public kindergarten in Nanjing were divided into experimental group,control group and control group.First of all,based on the classification scheme of mathematics-related discourse types and picture testing tools,we can understand the basic situation of mathematics focus of class children;Secondly,foreign studies mostly use picture books as the theme,and discuss the tasks of pictures and picture books based on language.Reading picture books puts the cultivation of children’s mathematics focus consciousness in a meaningful environment,and this method is also adopted in this study.The whole study follows the action research paradigm of "plan-action-reflection".The experimental group and the control group use different teachers’ questions on the premise of reading the same picture book.According to the social interaction theory,the types of picture books and teachers’ questions are taken as variables to explore the improvement of children’s mathematical focus and its application in daily life,while the control group does not participate in picture book reading to explore the influence of mathematical focus brought by growth factors.In this study,the qualitative analysis software NVIVO12 is used to analyze and discuss the mathematical discourse and types in children’s picture book reading.The results show that the children’s mathematical focus in the experimental group has been significantly improved,and their spontaneous mathematical language and behavior are better than those in the control group,but the difference between the control group and the control group is not significant.The mathematical information contained in picture books has aroused children’s interest and motivation in mathematics.Combining mathematics with literary picture books can encourage children to actively participate in learning and exploring mathematical ideas,so as to look at the surrounding environment with a mathematical eye and solve practical problems.