The Mathematics for Parents Newsletter program was designed as an extension of the Cognitively Guided Instruction (CGI) program. The goal of CGI is to inform teachers about how children think about simple arithmetic in the primary grades. In so doing, teachers are better able to adapt their teaching styles so as to maximize children's learning. Our work has extended this philosophy to the study of children's reasoning about space (e.g., shape, measure, depiction, and navigation).

Learning, however, is not limited to the classroom. A significant portion of what children learn occurs outside the walls of the classroom. Parents, as "home teachers", can be extremely valuable contributors to their children's education. The Mathematics for Parents Newsletter program aims at informing parents about how their children think about mathematics--just as CGI aims at informing teachers.

The following newsletters were provided to classroom teachers to be sent home with children during the school year. They were timed to coincide with lessons going on in the classrooms.

  1. Learning Math with Understanding
  2. Mathematics is More than Number
  3. Addition and Subtraction Problems 1
  4. Addition and Subtraction Problems 2
  5. Addition and Subtraction Problems 3
  6. Addition and Subtraction Problems 4
  7. Mathematics and Writing
  8. The Shape of Space
  9. Building Knowledge About Shapes: Quilt
  10. The Shape of Space: Nets
  11. Multiplication
  12. Measurement of Length
  13. Area Measurement
  14. Place Value
  15. Division
  16. Looking at Change in Spatial Reasoning
  17. Looking at Change in Number Sense

Newletter design: Rich Lehrer, Lee Shumow, Jeff Horvath
Comments: JHORVATH@MACC.WISC.EDU

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