It provides a way for students to make mathematics learning much more personal. Research has shown that children learn material best when it has meaning and usefulness for them. Literature is a way to give math meaning. Using math-related children s literature can help students realize that math will be useful to them in the real world. One of the major elements of math instruction is to emphasize problem-solving skills.
Literature is a wonderful tool for supporting problem solving learning.
The books act as word problems, but they become word problems that interest the students. In problem solving, facility with patterns enables children to see the important information in a real-world math problem, how the various pieces of information relate to each other, and the possibilities for predicting the outcome. The language and illustrations in picture books abound with patterns. When students look up information to answer a question or to formulate new questions, they are gathering and analyzing data. Gathering data is a frequent part of solving problems and satisfying curiosity.