Background:A child’s voice is expressed through many different languages. The Reggio Emilia Educational Approached in Italy hypothesises that children have one hundred languages to access, process, and express conceptual knowledge. One of these languages is children’s mathematical graphics. Children’s mathematical graphics, as a voice, allow children to access, process and express mathematical meanings and messages and develop mathematical memories. Children’s mathematical graphics support their higher mental functions and cognition and help them to engage with the world. Children’s mathematical graphics also create mental images and a visual construction of knowledge, which is important for mathematical learning in later years. Children’s mathematical voice is the starting point for accessing mathematical knowledge, learning significant mathematical concepts, and sharing their ideas with others. This highlights that acquiring a mathematical voice is critical for children’s cognition and higher order thinking. However, children’s mathematical graphics are mostly seen as scribbles, or as a developmental precursor to more realistic pictures. The potential of young children’s mathematical graphics is that it allows children to learn mathematical conceptual knowledge, form mental images and memories, and express messages and meanings of mathematical significance in symbolic ways.

Aims: The aim of this presentation is to highlight how children’s mathematical voices mediate children’s mathematical thinking and learning in the early years. Children’s mathematical graphics help in the acquisition of a mathematical voice expressing significant mathematical meanings and messages. This presentation also aims to show how children’s mathematical graphics develop children’s symbolic and abstract thought processes. The premise is that language precedes thought and learning.

Method: This research study used the Cultural-Historical methodology to research a group of twenty 4–5-year-old children attending an early childhood setting. Alongside the Cultural-Historical methodology, this study uses a conceptual framework to frame, collect and analyse the data.
Ethics approval acquired through CSU, as well as through parental and children’s consent.

Results: The findings from research into children’s mathematical graphics suggest that children’s mathematical graphics help to develop children’s mathematical conceptual meanings, messages, and memories, either implicitly (without mathematical words to explain their graphic) or explicitly (with mathematical words to explain their graphic). This is the beginning of their written mathematical voice. These include:
Implicit Mathematical Graphics: “A crocodile. There are the spikes on the body and the tail, sharp teeth with his mouth”.
Conceptual mathematical meanings: geometric shapes – rectangle and circles, straight parallel lines, positioning, size and spatial awareness
Explicit mathematical graphics: “The smallest are the babies; the next are the kids, and the biggest are the mums and dads. Lots of people. I’m doing lots of different colours. There is so many. They are all friends. They’re in their own music. I can’t even count them”.
Conceptual mathematical meanings: Mathematical understanding of groups, classification and quantity; circles and colours represent groups of people according to size; positioning; spatial awareness; differences and similarities symbolically represented by circles and colours; patterning and relationships.

Conclusions: Children’s mathematical graphics mediate children’s mathematical conceptual learning. The research points to the importance of acknowledging that language (voice) precedes thoughts and ideas (learning).

Implications for children and families: We recognise and value your mathematical graphics to support your learning of mathematical conceptual meanings, messages and memories.

Implications for practitioners: Noticing children’s mathematical graphics, not just as scribbles or developmental precursor to mature forms of drawing, but to mediate children’s mathematical conceptual knowledge, their mathematical meanings, messages and memories.

Key words: children’s mathematical graphics, children’s mathematical voice, conceptual understandings and learning, expression of significant mathematical meanings 

This presentation relates to the following United Nations Sustainable Development Goals:

• SDG 4: Quality Education