Using Children’s Books to Enhance Mathematics

In this article in The Reading Teacher, Allison Hintz and Anthony Smith (University of Washington/Bothell) suggest ways to use children’s literature to explain mathematics and make it vivid for students. The key steps, they say, are (a) choosing a good text, (b) exploring the text in a read-aloud and discussion with students, and (c) extending the text by getting students to explore ideas after the read-aloud is finished. Here are some books they suggest, along with the math links and suggested age-ranges:

Text-dependent:

Double Those Wheels by Nancy Raines Day – Doubling, counting by groups – Grades K-2

Equal Shmequal by Virginia Kroll – Equal and fair – Grades 3-5

Mummy Math: An Adventure in Geometry by Cindy Neuschwander – Geometry – Grades 2-4

Pete the Can and His Four Groovy Buttons by James Dean and Eric Litwin – Number recognition, counting back – Grades K-1

Tiger Math: Learning to Graph from a Baby Tiger by Ann Whitehead Nagda and Cindy Bickel – Data and statistics – Grades 3-5

Idea-enhancing:

Actual Size by Steve Jenkins – Estimation, measurement – Grades 1-3

The Doorbell Rang by Pat Hutchins – Adding on, counting up – Grades 2-4

Move Over Rover by Karen Beaumont – Adding on, counting back – Grades K-2

The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster – Number sense, geometry – Grades 4-6

Ten Flashing Fireflies by Philemon Sturges – Fact fluency, combinations of ten – Grades K-2 

Illustration-exploring:

Ancient Greece by Anne Pearson – Geometry, estimation, counting – Grades 3-5

Anno’s Counting Book by Mitsumasa Anno – Counting on by ones, groups – Grades K-2

I Spy a Dinosaur’s Eye by Jean Marzollo – Counting and cardinality – Grade K-2

Lonely Planet Not for Parents Extreme Planet by Lonely Planet – Representing and interpreting data – Grades 4-6

Shintauro’s Umbrellas by Marjorie Jackson – K-1

There Is a Bird on Your Head by Mo Willems – Addition and grouping – Grades K-2

“Mathematizing Read-Alouds in Three Easy Steps” by Allison Hintz and Anthony Smith in The Reading Teacher, October 2013 (Vol. 67, #2, p. 103-108), http://bit.ly/1emFxf2; the authors can be reached at ahintz@uwb.edu and ansmith@uwb.edu.

From the Marshall Memo #506