Editor’s note: Transcript has been edited for clarity.
With Bruner’s Concrete, Pictorial, Abstract approach, it’s easier for children to learn new concepts more deeply. Emma Valerio shares her tips for how to use concrete resources to support maths learning.
We actually started using concrete materials before we started using the Maths — No Problem! textbooks, because I think we started before the textbooks were available.
Just experimenting, we got together as a staff and we looked at the curriculum and talked about: if you’re teaching ratio, what would you use to help you? We looked at the strands and figured out what could be used when and where, and what was going to be most useful.
You can’t expect people to use the textbooks and not have number disks. And that’s the responsibility of the leadership at the school, to make sure that the equipment is there.