Teaching mathematics through picture books

Student engagement with mathematics has been a concern to educators for many decades. One of the reasons students disengage is the challenge to see the relevance and application of mathematics within meaningful contexts. One effective way to improve student engagement in the primary classroom is through the use of picture books. They provide interesting contexts for mathematics and make maths lessons fun, engaging, and creative, while integrating important literacy skills. They also lend themselves to the working mathematically processes that are the core of our mathematics curriculum" problem solving, reasoning, communicating, understanding and fluency. Rather than promoting simple content-based mathematics, picture books provide important opportunities for students to extend beyond computation through to problem solving, and even further, to mathematical investigation.