We are pleased to announce that both HarperCollins and Charlesbridge have officially renewed their sponsorship of our Young Mathematical Story Author (YMSA) competition.
 
The YMSA competition is the world's first annual international competition set up to encourage young mathematics learners (8-15 years old) from around the world to embed their mathematics learning in a meaningful and engaging context through creating their own mathematical story picture book. This competition is organised by MathsThroughStories.org, and its first competition was held in 2019.

For the past two years, HarperCollins and Charlesbridge have sponsored the Stuart J. Murphy Award (8-11 year olds category) and the Cindy Neuschwander Award (12-15 year olds category) respectively. For both awards, the winners get £100 cash prize each and their schools also get another £100 cash prize each.
 
HarperCollins is the publisher of MathStart, the world’s largest mathematical stories series authored by a single author (Stuart J. Murphy), and Charlesbridge the publisher of Cindy Neuschwander’s very successful Sir Cumference series.  
 
If you want to learn more about our 2021 YMSA competition, click here.  ​

Winning and shortlisted entries from our 2019 competition can be found here, and from our 2020 competition can be found here. 
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A co-authored paper by Dr. Natthapoj Vincent Trakulphadetkrai (founder of MathsThroughStoris.org and Associate Professor of Mathematics Education, University of Reading), which set out to examine Maltese teachers’ perceived barriers to and enablers for the integration of children’s literature in mathematics teaching, has recently been published in Taylor and Francis’s Cogent Education journal. The article is available free of charge here.

This paper is the second paper in an international series of research papers that Dr. Trakulphadetkrai collaborates with academics in different countries to investigate the extent to which teachers use children's literature in mathematics teaching and their perceived barriers to and enablers for doing so. The first paper in the series focuses on Irish teachers and upcoming papers focus on teachers in Taiwan, Australia, Israel and England. 

To learn more about Dr. Trakulphadetkrai's research interests, click here. 

The Twitter account of MathsThroughStories.org (@MathsStories) now has over 5,000 Followers. 

Since the launch of the Twitter account, our on-line community has grown rapidly. It remains a very vibrant place for teachers, parents, researchers and storytellers who are passionate in the use of storytelling to enrich mathematics teaching and learning to come together and learn from one another. 

You can also follow us on Facebook and Instagram. 

Since school closures began earlier this year due to COVID19, parents have found themselves having to support their child's homeschooling. To that end, we are very pleased that many schools across the UK have recommended various free on-line resources on our MathsThroughStories.org website to parents. Some of these examples are included below. (More examples can be found in the bottom section of our Research Impact webpage.)

We are also very pleased that our website is also recommended in a recent blog post by the UK's Education Endowment Foundation (EEF), an independent charity sets out to improve the educational attainment of the poorest pupils in English schools. The blog post includes advice to support parents in their homeschooling effort. It is worth noting that our website is also highlighted as a go-to resource for teachers looking for ideas on how to enhance their mathematics teaching through storytelling in their guidance report at the beginning of this year. 

We are very proud of our work in that it has continued to serve as a trusted source of support for schools and parents, particularly during this challenging time.  
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​A new report by the UK's Education Endowment Foundation (EEF), an independent charity sets out to improve the educational attainment of the poorest pupils in English schools, recommends MathsThroughStories.org as a go-to resource for teachers looking for ideas on how to enhance their mathematics teaching through storytelling.

Dr. Natthapoj Vincent Trakulphadetkrai (founder of MathsThroughStories.org) commented that: 

"It is wonderful to see a guidance report by an influential organisation like the EEF explicitly recommends teachers to enhance their mathematics teaching using storytelling. As a cherry on top, it is humbling to see the report highlights my MathsThroughStories.org initiative as a go-to resource for teachers." 

The full report can be accessed here. 
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MathsThroughStories.org, a non-profit initiative, sets out to encourage teachers and parents globally to enhance their maths teaching through storytelling. The website provides free on-line resources including the world’s largest database of recommendations for maths stories, 100+ reviews of maths story picture books, exclusive interviews with maths story authors, blog posts, and a list of recommended research articles and articles written for practitioners. The website also provides free story-inspired maths lesson ideas as contributed by teachers from different countries. Last year, MathsThroughStories.org launched the world’s first international maths story writing competition, receiving over 200 entries from children in several countries. Since its launched in 2017, the website has been viewed over 390,000 times by more than 84,000 teachers and parents from over 190 countries.
Through Dr. Trakulphadetkrai, the initiative also collaborates with academics in different countries to work on original empirical research projects relating to the use of storytelling in maths teaching. To date, the initiative also provides CPD training to around 600 in-service teachers at schools and 2,000+ teacher trainees at 30+ universities throughout the UK.

​MathsThroughStories.org's Twitter account (@MathsStories), created in 2015 and officially opened in 2017, now has over 4,000 Followers. The account continues to provide a great platform where we can keep teachers and parents updated on what we do. We have also seen how several teachers use Twitter to directly recommend our initiative to other teachers - as captured on the Shoutouts page on our website.  

We are also excited to announce that we now have an Instagram account: @MathsThroughStories. We hope for those who are always on Instagram will enjoy having another channel of communication with us! Please follow our Instagram account and help spread the word about it :- )

We would love to take this opportunity to thank everyone for your on-going interest and support in our initiative. Don't forget to check out our Facebook page too! And who knows - we might push the boat out and have a YouTube page too! :- )

MathsThroughStories.org is featured in the new promotional brochure of the University of Reading's Institute of Education. The brochure highlights a number of 'stories' featuring a few selected staff and students of the Institute. In Dr. Trakulphadetkrai's (founder of MathsThroughStories.org) story, he explains how his research passion and expertise in mathematical story picture books are formed and the rationale behind his MathsThroughStories.org initiative. To access the full brochure, click here. 

​Over the past two years, Dr. Trakulphadetkrai has also been running free workshops at 30+ universities nationally and internationally to model to teacher educators his Maths Through Stories training approach so they themselves can train the next generations of teachers. Nearly 2,000 teacher trainees have received his training. Dr. Trakulphadetkrai has also been invited to meet with representatives of Ireland’s National Council for Curriculum and Assessment in Dublin in March 2019 to explore how explicit recommendations for Irish teachers to use storytelling can be included in the country’s upcoming primary mathematics curriculum.

​As another keynote speaker was one of Her Majesty’s Inspectors (HMIs) who talked about the new school inspection framework, Dr. Trakulphadetkrai explained to school leaders how the idea of teaching mathematics through storytelling aligns nicely with the focus of the new framework, particularly in relation to the expectation that “Pupils’ mathematical knowledge is developed and used, where appropriate, across the curriculum.”
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Gavin Evans (the Head of Primary Education of all primary schools within the Skills For Life Trust) commented that “The keynote talk given by Dr. Vince was truly inspirational. Both the content and his presentation style engaged the whole audience for 50 minutes and was one of the key, positive feedback points at the end of the conference. The detail provided about how story books can be used to deliver Maths concepts was enlightening and I know will begin to have a huge impact across Medway schools. Thank you!”
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Dr. Trakulphadetkrai was also asked by the conference organiser to bring along a range of mathematical story picture books to show to school leaders, after his keynote talk, appropriate materials for their schools to consider using in their mathematics teaching.

Dr. Trakulphadetkrai used a portion of the awarded fund to organise a free 3-hour workshop training Mathematics Subject Co-ordinators of local schools on how to teach mathematics using story picture books, which is his research expertise. The event took place on 1 May 2019 and attracted Mathematics Subject Co-ordinators of around 30 primary schools across Berkshire.
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Following this event, the teachers are expected to deliver a mathematics lesson using a story picture book and to write up their lesson idea and share it with other teachers from around the world on Dr. Trakulphadetkrai’s research project website (MathsThroughStories.org). The rest of the fund will be spent on creating a training video with the help of teachers and pupils from Redlands Primary School. This video will be made available on the MathsThroughStories.org website and will be used as part of Dr. Trakulphadetkrai’s future training workshops and those delivered by teacher educators in the UK and abroad.

​Comments from some of the workshop participants include:

“Thought provoking, engaging. I will share the resources [on MathsThroughStories.org] with the rest of the teaching team. As Mathematics Coordinator, I will include stories as part of the Mathematics curriculum planning overview.”

“Thoroughly engaging due to its inspiring concept, workshop leader and immersive material. I feel inspired to implement the strategy of mathematics teaching through stories.”

“Really interesting and useful. I am excited to trial a story picture book within a Maths unit. I think my school setting from Reception to Year 6 will find this exhilarating. I look forward to sharing this!”

“It was really engaging and inspiring to realise the wealth of resources out there! I will endeavour to use story picture books in my mathematics teaching to help children make links.”

​Dr. Natthapoj Vincent Trakulphadetkrai (Lecturer in Primary Mathematics Education) has recently been awarded the University of Reading’s Research Fellowship (£10,000) for the 2019/2020 academic year. Twenty Fellowship applications were submitted, and only five applications were chosen across the university’s five research themes. According to the University’s press release, “Five Reading academics at the top of their game have been awarded University Research Fellowships to develop their work in the arts, humanities and social sciences over the next year.”
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Applications were assessed in terms of originality, rigour and significance of the proposed Fellowship project as well as the extent to which it shows ambition and constitute a ‘step change’ in the work of the applicant. The Fellowship is for the duration of one year.

​Dr. Trakulphadetkrai’s project, titled ‘Learning Mathematics through Creating Story Picture books: A New Mathematics Teaching Strategy for Primary School Children’  will be built on his pilot study. The study aims to investigate the effectiveness of an innovative mathematics teaching strategy whereby children creating their own mathematical story picture books (MSPB). Specifically, it sets out to measure the extent to which asking Year 4 (8-9 years old) children to create MSPB about multiplication can help to develop their conceptual understanding of the topic. Finally, the study will also explore key stakeholders’ perceptions of this teaching strategy.

Dr. Trakulphadetkrai said: “Existing studies on this topic tend to be conducted in the early years (3-5 years old) and Key Stage 1 (5-7 years old) settings and they treated children as only consumers rather than producers of MSPB. This study will be the first empirical study of its kind to investigate the effect of treating children as producers of MSPB.” He also added that “This study will form part of my research underpinning my non-profit MathsThroughStories.org initiative, which sets out to encourage teachers and parents globally to teach mathematics using storytelling.”

To learn more about Dr. Trakulphadetkrai’s research interests, click here.

​To learn more about the Fellowship and details of the other Fellowship recipients, click here.

​Dr. Trakulphadetkrai’s presentation (titled ‘Irish Teachers’ Perceptions on the Integration of Children’s Literature in Mathematics Teaching and Learning’) was based on a recent research project that he collaborated with Dr. Mark Prendergast (Trinity College Dublin) as well as Dr. Lorraine Harbison and Sue Miller (Dublin City University). This study explored Irish pre-service and in-service teachers’ views on the use of children’s literature to support mathematics teaching and learning and to investigate perceived barriers to and enablers for the integration of children’ literature in the mathematics classroom.

​As part of the Institute of Education’s ‘Big Questions’ research video series, Dr. Natthapoj Vincent Trakulphadetkrai (Lecturer in Primary Mathematics Education) answers the following Big Question: ‘What if maths was taught through storytelling?’.
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In this video, Dr. Trakulphadetkrai explains that students sometimes complain that learning mathematics is boring and difficult as mathematical concepts are sometimes taught in a very formulaic and abstract way – very different from how students might experience them in real life. He argues that teaching mathematics through storytelling particularly in the picture book format can work much better.

Later in the video, he highlights his MathsThroughStories.org initiative which encourages teachers and parents globally to teach mathematics using story picture books. The website also provides several free on-line resources. Since it was launched in March 2017, the website has been viewed over 250,000 times by more than 48,000 teachers and parents from 180 countries.
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To watch the video, click here.

​Dr. Fallon has recently read a research article co-authored by Dr. Trakulphadetkrai reporting key perceived barriers to and enablers for the integration of story picture books in mathematics teaching as reported by Irish primary teachers. Since then, Dr. Fallon and NCCA are interested to learn more about the approach, particularly its adoption across the primary curriculum and not just at the pre-school level.

Dr. Trakulphadekrai said “What I hope, of course, is for there to be explicit recommendations in Ireland’s new primary mathematics curriculum for teachers (particularly of older primary school children) to consider using story picture books to enrich their mathematics teaching. This would clearly signal to Irish primary teachers that the use of such resource is not something that only pre-school teachers use, but that it is something that primary teachers could use and benefit from as well."

Special thanks go to Dr. Lorraine Harbison (Associate Professor in Mathematics Education​ at Dublin City University and a co-author of the research paper) for organising and hosting this meeting.

​Upon Dr. Harbison’s earlier invitation, Dr. Trakulphadekrai also ran his popular Maths Through Stories training workshop for around 70 primary teacher trainees from both Dublin City University (Dublin, Republic of Ireland) and Ulster University (Coleraine, Northern Ireland, UK) later that afternoon. The workshop was also attended by the NCCA representatives.

The workshop was very successful and well received. Jacinta Regan (Education Officer, NCCA), for example, commented that:
“Maths Through Stories is a fantastic and practical workshop that enables practitioners to think about how Mathematics can be taught in an integrated and enjoyable way through the use of picture books. Picture books are an essential part of every classroom and this course challenges practitioners to consider their additional use outside of the English reading lesson. My participation in the course was very informative and will assist me in my work with primary school teachers moving forward. I look forward to sharing this playful pedagogy with our teacher networks.”


Dr. Lorraine Harbison (Associate Professor in Mathematics Education​ at Dublin City University, Republic of Ireland)​ commented on the event that:
“The Maths through Stories workshop was skilfully facilitated by Vincent where two cohorts of student teachers from Northern and Southern Ireland collaborated for the first time on a SCoTENS project on the use of story picture books in the primary school mathematics classroom. There was a senses of fun and excitement throughout the day with a lively exchange of learning. Students went away with not only a positive experience of the workshop, but also with some very rich ideas that they intend to implement on school placement over the coming weeks​” 


Shauna McGill (PGCE Primary Course Director at Ulster University, Northern Ireland, UK) said:
“The Maths Through Stories workshop offered a cross-curricular platform to demonstrate connecting learning between Numeracy and Literacy. The range of supporting maths stories were expertly evaluated and the potential for using them effectively in the primary classroom excitedly explored. Vince’s delivery was dynamic and enthusiastic. We were very grateful for his contribution to our Scotens University collaboration project.​” 


Some of the trainees’ comments included:
“It was a great workshop. Vincent gave me lots of good ideas. He is so enthusiastic and made me want to be a better teacher and be creative all the time :-)”  

“I found it very interesting and extremely helpful for my placement. I will now try to use more story picture books in maths lessons as I never really thought to use them before with maths.”

​“Very informative, active and fun experience. Vince is very engaging and inspiring. Really enjoyed this :-) ” ​ ​

Dr. Natthapoj Vincent Trakulphadetkrai (Lecturer in Primary Mathematics Education at the University of Reading’s Institute of Education and Founder of the MathsThroughStories.org initiative) was invited by the National Centre for Excellence in the Teaching of Mathematics (NCETM), a national £40-million Department for Education-funded body, to develop a Maths Through Stories teacher training resource for early years teachers. ​

​Dr. Trakulphadetkrai already met with Viv Lloyd, NCETM’s Assistant Director for Primary and Early Years, on Tuesday 20th November 2018 to develop the resource which is drawn from his research expertise in the area of using storytelling, particularly story picture books, to enhance mathematics teaching and learning.
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In addition to being invited to develop the resource, Dr. Trakulphadetkrai was also invited to deliver a Maths Through Stories training workshop to early years teachers in January 2019. On the workshop, Viv commented that: 

“As part of some pilot early mathematics work in the Northern Powerhouse region in the UK, it was felt that an important aspect of pedagogy to explore was the role stories can play in developing mathematical understanding. MathsThroughStories.org (Vince) was approached to support with the development and delivery of this session. Vince was keen to share his expertise and to support in sharing the work of this organisation. The session was well delivered and the practitioners had the opportunity to think about the ways in which they could develop the use of carefully selected stories in their mathematics practice. Practitioners gave positive verbal feedback about the ways in which they were going to further explore their use of stories to support mathematical understanding. Thank you​!”

​​In his role as Founder of MathsThroughStories.org, Dr. Trakulphadetkrai used his talk to highlight and advocate for an innovative mathematics learning approach, namely learning mathematics by creating mathematical story picture books, to his audience. Drawing from the findings of his pilot research on this topic, he showed how promising this pedagogical approach could be.
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Dr. Trakulphadetkrai was joined by two mathematics teachers in this roundtable discussion, which was chaired by Ann Mroz (Editor of Times Educational Supplement). The event was held at Pearson’s headquarter in central London, and attended by representatives of educational organisations in both the public and private sectors.

Dr. Trakulphadetkrai's key arguments are subsequently highlighted in the post-event report below and can be accessed in full here. Moreover, two short videos featuring Dr. Trakulphadetkrai talking about his MathsThroughStories.org initiative and his talk at the Roundtable event can also be watched here and here respectively. 
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