Parent journeys through number talks with their children

Abstract

This study examined twenty-four parent journeys as they engaged in number talks with their children. The researcher used action research through the presentation of three workshops. Data included four rounds of interactive writing with all participants, the researcher’s reflective journal and follow-up interviews with four participants. The researcher composed narrative stories to interpret each of the interview participant’s journey. Through reflecting on all of the data, themes and sub-themes emerged to address the research questions and objectives. The research question was: When parents engage in number talks, what are the aspects of their experience that they consider to have contributed to their children’s development of mathematical problem solving and number sense? The three objectives were: 1. To determine how parent participants learn to support their children’s mathematics growth through participation in workshops. 2. To determine what factors affect parents as learners (with regard to noticing opportunities, engaging learners, attitudes, and use of problem solving) while leading their children during number talks. 3. To develop recommendations about how to support and guide parents to help their children develop number sense. In terms of the first objective (i.e., how parents learn), the researcher discovered that all parents were on their own unique journey. However, three main themes did emerge with corresponding sub-themes. To directly address the research question, the themes of developing a growth mindset, foundational experiences, and the relationship of the parents with the researcher were the aspects of parents’ experiences that contributed to their own as well as their children’s development as learners of mathematics. For the second objective, the sub-themes varied and represented the factors that affected parents as learners. For the third objective, recommendations have been developed based on the experiential nature of the research to empower other parents to be involved in numeracy talks with their children.