Suggested pedagogical approaches

A variety of pedagogical approaches should be employed to teach pattern and its underlying concepts to young children. Intentional teaching is “deliberate, purposeful and thoughtful” (DEEWR, 2009, p.15). Educators who use intentional teaching “use strategies such as modelling and demonstrating, open questioning, speculating, explaining, engaging in shared thinking and problem solving to extend children’s thinking and learning” (DEEWR, 2009, p.15). Here the focus will be on demonstrating, and questioning.

When children learn a new skill educators can employ the teaching technique of demonstrating. MacNaughton and Williams (2004) state that “to demonstrate is to show how something is done” (p.55) and can assist children in learning new skills as they learn through observation. This technique can be used to teach new skills or as a reminder of how to do something previously learnt (MacNaughton & Williams, 2004).

Questioning is an essential teaching technique for educators to employ when teaching pattern. Open ended questions engage children’s thinking and require them to share their thoughts on the topic at hand. It is used for much more than just gauging what a child knows but to draw attention to things, and promote sustained shared thinking (DEEWR, 2009; MacNaughton & Williams, 2004).

It is also important to note that “Children learn mathematics more efficiently when using manipulative materials rather than abstract or semi-abstract instructional materials” (Lee, 2010, p.37). This means that when children are learning pattern it is important not to jump too far ahead to symbolic and abstract processes.

Children can have difficulty learning the concept of growing patterns due to “inadequate or inappropriate development of repeating patterns without a sound understanding of the unit of repeat” (Papic & Mulligan, 2007). For this reason it is important that teachers make sure children have a firm understanding of unit of repeat before moving on to more complex patterning.