Building Statistical Literacy From the Ground Up: Playing With Blocks

• In Event: A Global Perspective on Early Childhood Education

Abstract

This pilot project explores the idea of laying a foundation for statistical literacy in a pre-literate six-year-old child in order to preempt the anxiety, negative attitudes, and misconceptions that often accompany the teaching and learning of statistics. Bruner’s three modes of representation and Vygotsky’s zone of proximal development provide a theoretical framework. This study takes Dienes’ approach to learning mathematical structures through the playful manipulation of blocks and other tangible objects into the realm of statistics education.

Author

• Robert Giebitz, University of New Mexico