Children's Mathematics: Cognitively Guided Instruction » (1st Edition)

Thomas Carpenter is Professor of Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he has taught for twenty-five years. He is the former editor of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) Journal for Research in Mathematics Education, and has received the NCTM Lifetime Achievement award for Distinguished Service to Mathematics Education among other awards.

Elizabeth Fennema is Emerita Professor of Curriculum and Instruction and Senior Scientist at the Wisconsin Center for Education Research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She has studied the teaching and learning of mathematics throughout her professional career, and is well known for her work on gender and mathematics.

Megan Loef Franke is an Associate Professor in the Department of Education at the University of California-Los Angeles and Director of Center X: Where Research and Practice Intersect for Urban School Professionals. Her work focuses on understanding and supporting teacher learning through professional development.

Linda Levi is an Associate Researcher at the Wisconsin Center for Education Research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her recent work focuses on children's algebraic reasoning in the elementary school. She has designed and conducted professional development workshops for teachers across the country.

By the time they begin school, most children have already developed a sophisticated, informal understanding of basic mathematical concepts and problem-solving strategies. Too often, however, the mathematics instruction that we impose upon them in the classroom fails to connect with this informal knowledge. Children's Mathematics was written to help you understand children's intuitive mathematical thinking and use that knowledge to help children learn mathematics with understanding.

Based on more than twenty years of research, this book portrays the development of children's understanding of basic number concepts. The authors offer a detailed explanation and numerous examples of the problem-solving and computational processes that virtually all children use as their numerical thinking develops. They also describe how classrooms can be organized to foster that development. Two accompanying CDs provide a remarkable inside look at students and teachers in real classrooms implementing the teaching and learning strategies described in the text. Together, the book and CDs provide you with the foundation necessary to engage children in discussions of how they think through problems-providing suggestions for what problems to give and insight into what responses to expect, and how children's thinking will evolve.

Addition/Subtraction: Problem Types

Addition/Subtraction: Children's Solution Strategies

Multiplication/Division: Problem Types and Children's Solution Strategies

Problem Solving as Modeling

Multidigit Number Concepts

Beginning to Teach Using Cognitively Guided Instruction

CGI Classrooms

Appendix: The Research Base for Cognitively Guided Instruction