Literature Review 2

Parrish, S. (2010). Number talks: helping children build mental math and computation

strategies, grades K-5. California: Math Solutions.

In chapter 1 Parrish (2010) discusses the rationale for practicing number talks in the elementary math classroom. She depicts mathematics education as historically misconceived resulting in a math-phobic nation unable to meet the demands of today’s informational world. Parrish argues that math is a door to opportunity and one key element is to provide students with opportunities to develop their quantitative reasoning skills so that they may compute accurately, efficiently and flexibly. Parrish (2010) outlines five key components of number talks as “classroom environment and community, classroom discussions, the teacher’s role and purposeful computation problems” (p. 10). Lastly, she provides some useful dialogue of an actual number talk as well as examples of recording student’s strategies. 

Parrish’s (2010) key components to number talks will guide my reflection, planning and coaching work around number talks. Time, misconceptions, asking open-ended questions and crafting purposeful problems are closely interwoven sub-areas that Parrish discusses and that I foresee as potential opportunities for my work with teachers. “In number talks, wrong answers are used as opportunities to unearth misconceptions and for students to investigate their thinking and learning from their mistakes” (Parrish, 2010, p. 11). This has potential to be a huge shift in thinking and practice for a teacher. It asks her to invest in creating a safe learning community where risk taking is valued and provide students time to think. Additionally she will “engage in listening to and learning about students’ natural thinking through asking open-ended questions” (Parrish, 2010, p. 12). I believe Parrish’s ideas extend beyond number talks and are integral aspects of any math teaching and learning opportunity.