Abstract
M.Ed. (Education)
When children start their engagement with symbolic learning, they lay the
foundations for future learning. Engaging with the world though mathematical
symbols and concomitant linguistic symbols is no mean feat. Learning to ‘make their
world mathematical’ is a human activity that is guided by instruction and clear
communication. This is the central premise of the study – that children have not only
innate number sense, but that they are also innately responsive to their environment.
I thus set out to find out how a group of pre-schoolers expressed their learning of the
mathematical world. This early manifestation of getting to know the world
mathematically is too often underestimated in studies of learning in the early years,
specifically when children are being prepared for formal education.
Added to that, education curriculum development is currently the focal point in early
childhood development in South Africa. In the study, I posit that the curriculum still
lacks focused and direct practical assessments that are needed to optimise the
programme, specifically in the development of early number concepts.
I argue that young children in the pre-Grade R classes should have access to a
variety of mathematical concept development activities, in an environment that allows
for learning through play. This optimal learning environment is often not available for
many children in South Africa. I thus approached the study with a central research
question:
How do children in the pre-Grade R classroom respond to a set of tasks that
aims to elicit descriptions of their mathematical concept knowledge?
I wanted to investigate if there is a relationship between children’s number concepts,
specifically their recognition of mathematical symbols (such as digits/numerals), and
their counting competence. I wondered how children respond to object classification
and pattern identification tasks and what role language plays in children’s basic
number concept development. To this end, customised lab tasks were developed for
a sample of young children. This was done to gain insight into some of the...