Mid Sweden University

MATHEMATICS TEXTBOOKS IN PRIMARY SCHOOL

- A MULTIMODAL PERSPECTIVE

Malin Norberg

Mid Sweden University, Sundsvall, Sweden

In today's society, we constantly encounter information in different systems of signs: books, TV, the Internet, billboards, milk cartons, smart phones and newspapers, to name a few examples. Kress (2003) argues that reading today is not just about reading a written text, but to read for example, text, image and sound, and names this visual reading. Mathematics textbooks rules mathematics teaching to a large extent (Johansson, 2003), except that, mathematics is a textbook controlled subject and students largely meets textbooks in mathematics teaching (see for example Jellis, 2008; Johansson, 2006; Kling Sackerud 2009), therefore this study is of great concern.

In this on-going research project, which also represents part of a thesis project on students meaning making of mathematics textbook in primary school, a multimodal textbook analysis will be made. Given that few studies focusing mathematics textbooks in primary school has been made this project aims to describe how mathematics textbooks in primary school are structured in order to gain knowledge of what is required of the student in her meeting with a mathematics textbook.

The theoretical approach is grounded in a multimodal design theoretic perspective (Selander, 2008; Selander & Kress, 2010), which refers to the social semiotic field (see for example Kress, 2010; Jewitt, 2011) where meaning making is essential. From this perspective, meaning making is always multimodal, made through various sign systems, or modes, such as speech, gestures, written text, image, and sound.

The study is based on a number of typical tasks from different textbooks for grade 1, from some of the textbook publishers available on the Swedish market. With “typical tasks" means common types of tasks. The research question is: Which modes do students meet in printed textbooks as well as digital textbooks and how do the modes interact? These are analysed with Danielsson and Selanders (2014) Model for working with multimodal texts in education. Expected outcomes are knowledge about how different modes interact. This can in turn provide basis for setting good learning situations. Different modes sometimes give partly contradictory information to the reader Danielsson and Selander (2016) claim and teaching materials design can be crucial to an individual's meaning making. Therefore a study of the different modes in printed and digital textbooks will be made in order to ultimately hopefully contribute to the development of good learning situations in mathematics education.