Abstract:

Stories have an important role in any child life. They give an important tool for the educator to help children to discover the world. While reading a tale, children immerse their selves in the story, believes what is said in the tale. Thus using special children stories for mathematics education helps pupils to immerse their selves in the world of the mathematics, which it is transformed from a school discipline into a fairyland. In this world the mathematical notion are more attractive, sometimes the story makes the mathematical knowledge important in order to understand the rest of the story. For using children stories in mathematics education the right story should be selected for a given topic and for a given group of children, and the teacher needs to have methodological knowledge about integrating the story in the mathematics lesson.

The research presented in this paper is based on a survey made among pre-service primary school teachers related with use of children stories in mathematics lessons. An online questionnaire with four main parts was developed: the first part is related with respondents ’attitude and believes related with children stories in mathematics education, the second part is related with their methodological knowledge on how to integrate these stories in classroom activities, the third part is about the participants’ experience in integrating children stories in mathematics lesson, and the fourth part is related with students’ experience about writing mathematical stories. In the survey two categories of students were participated: one who already taken the discipline Mathematics Education during their university studies and has already written a mathematical story (they have completed all the four parts), and another group, who has not yet studied methodology of teaching mathematics (they have completed the first two part). The results show that pre-service primary school teachers have a positive attitude towards mathematical children stories and their use in mathematics lessons, but they have little experience and their methodological knowledge on integrated these stories in classroom activities needs to be developed.

Keywords:

Mathematical story, children story, mathematics education, pre-service primary school teachers.