Children are Born Mathematicians - Supporting Mathematical Development, Birth to Age 8 (Paperback)

Comprehensive yet accessible, "Children Are Born Mathematicians" is a constructivist and developmental approach to teaching mathematics to young children from birth through third grade. Foundational chapters on the state of mathematics today, theories of learning, and diverse learners provide the perspective that understanding of mathematics is developed individually as well as socially, and age-specific chapters explain how teachers can support and assess that learning. A Constructivist Approach. Geist wants prospective teachers to understand how children learn math, and devotes much of this book helping readers understand how to provide learning experiences that help children construct their own learning. A Developmental Approach. Because knowing "what" to teach and "when" to introduce it is as important as knowing "how" to teach, the core chapters of this text break teaching math down into accessible parts, by age groups: infants and toddlers, preschool, kindergarten and first grade, and second and third grade. Each age-group chapter has a consistent organization: brief developmental introduction, what concepts children naturally discover during that developmental range, NCTM concepts that children should be learning, assessment methods, and open-ended ideas and lesson plans to support those concepts. Incorporates NCTM Standards and Curriculum Focal Points. Standards discussions and Curriculum Focal Points are woven throughout the book. Students will learn what content to incorporate into lessons, see examples of lesson plans, and learn to implement standards-based, developmentally appropriate lessons in their classrooms.