Building Connections Between Children’s Representations and Their Conceptual Development in Mathematics

Abstract

Young children's representations of their mathematical experiences occur as a natural part of their everyday lives. They can occur in a variety of forms, including their drawings, play, writing, gesturing, and more recently, digital productions. These representations are an essential part of young children's general cognitive, social, and emotional development. During the early years of schooling, children are expected to formalize their representations through increased use of symbols, conventional structures, and mathematical language. Supporting children to make explicit connections between their representations and mathematical concepts is an essential activity for early childhood teachers. Both researchers and teachers need to understand the nature of representations and the role they play in young children's mathematics learning. In this chapter, we focus on the mathematical representations produced by children in their first two years of school (five-to six-year-olds). We revisit data from our previous research to generate new interpretations and propose new lines of inquiry that aim to extend our understanding of student-generated representations. In doing so, we also highlight the important role early-year teachers play in helping to build connections between young children's representations and their conceptual development in mathematics.