RUNNING HEAD: ARTICLE REFLECTION 1

Michaela Kim

I really enjoyed reading these three articles. I enjoyed them because I honestly do not

particularly enjoy mathematics and do not think fun when I think about this subject; however, I

realized that math is not so terrible especially if games are involved. There are so many games

that involved addition and subtraction. For instance, Monopoly. I could not help but think about

the countless hours my siblings and I played Monopoly while reading these articles, especially

while reading the article Early Addition. When you roll the two dices, you add the numbers of

the dots together and then you move your piece the sum of the two numbers rolled. While

playing this game, I am doing math without even thinking about it. Using board games is a fun

and engaging way to get students to practice addition and I definitely plan to use or make up my

own board games in my future classroom. I really like the idea of using one dice and then once

the students are ready, adding another dice to help them to not just practice addition, but

understand addition.

What I thought was very interesting and eye opening was the controversial debate on

when to introduce children to numeric representation. And I agree that numerals should come

after children are proficient in combining two sets through counting the numbers together. If a

child does not have an understanding of what addition is, it makes sense that the numerical

representations can affect negatively on a student.

In my practicum last semester, I was at the Young Childrens Program. I was with

preschoolers: the morning with 3-4 year olds and in the afternoon 4-5 year olds. There was not
RUNNING HEAD: ARTICLE REFLECTION 2

specific lessons, but there were lots of opportunities to learn while playing such as observing

tadpoles, playing at the water sensory table, access to books, musical, instruments, blocks, and

manipulatives. Although the morning class did not prepare much math, but having signs on the

snack table that said, take 1, take 3, take 4, etc, the afternoon class had a bit more times when

they did do math. In the afternoon, the children sometimes had signs with larger amounts, but

also had laminated goldfish mats that not only told them the amount of goldfish, but also showed

the numeric representation of that number. They also as a class had calender time and rotated on

who write down the amount of days left of school. Because both classes were in the same room,

despite the differences, the classroom had both representations of a number through numbers of

things and numerical representation. The students were being exposed to both.

I believe that introducing numeral representations too early is like skipping a phase stated

in the article Enriching Addition and Subtraction Through Games. I remember in elementary

school mindlessly memorizing formulas and I really disliked timed multiplication worksheets. I

was really bad at multiplication and really bad at memorization, I felt defeated when it came to

multiplication. It was not until I came to James Madison University that I understood what

multiplication was. Multiplication is adding groups of something. I hope that when I have my

own classroom that I can effectively teach without skipping the second phase because without it,

children have no idea what is actually happening. Instead of fully understanding what is

happening in a math problem, a formula that is memorized is being used without full

understanding of the formula. Higher thinking is not being used when formulas are being

memorized and it actually is not helpful to the student in the long run.

I really hope that I can teach math in a fun and engaging way. I hope my students never

feel defeated like I did.