The articles anchoring this study, stored here as a working literature review. Each entry notes what the article establishes and why it matters to our design.
Jett, C. C. (2018). The effects of children's literature on preservice early childhood mathematics teachers' thinking.
Journal of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, 18(1), 96–114
A SoTL case study of 29 early childhood education majors in a mathematics content course. Children's literature was used as a deliberate pedagogical intervention — scaffolded with graphic organizers, KWL charts, Frayer models, and web diagrams — to influence preservice teachers' thinking about mathematics teaching and learning.
Our closest predecessor and key contrast: Jett explicitly taught noticing with mathematics-themed texts. Our study measures spontaneous noticing of embedded math ideas in shared storybook reading, before any such instruction.
Sherin, M. G., & van Es, E. A. (2009). Effects of video club participation on teachers' professional vision.
Journal of Teacher Education, 60(1), 20–37
Foundational professional-noticing work: effective teaching requires selective attention to, and interpretation of, consequential instructional moments.
Supplies the theoretical frame for noticing as selective attention plus interpretation — the construct our survey operationalizes in a storybook context.
Jacobs, V. R., Lamb, L. L. C., & Philipp, R. A. (2010). Professional noticing of children's mathematical thinking.
Journal for Research in Mathematics Education, 41(2), 169–202
Defines professional noticing of children's mathematical thinking as attending, interpreting, and deciding how to respond — and shows it supports responsive instruction.
Grounds our aim of linking noticing to instructional intention: noticing matters because it precedes deciding to act.
Clements, D. H., & Sarama, J. (2009). Learning and teaching early math: The learning trajectories approach.
Routledge
Establishes that early mathematics develops along research-based developmental progressions across domains such as quantity, comparison, spatial reasoning, patterning, and measurement.
Defines the mathematical domains we treat as 'embedded math ideas' worth noticing in storybook illustrations and narrative structure.
Justice, L. M., & Ezell, H. K. (2004). Print referencing: An emergent literacy enhancement strategy and its clinical applications.
Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, 35(2), 185–193
Shows that adults can deliberately direct children's attention to print embedded in shared reading, with measurable literacy gains.
The direct analog for our construct of 'math referencing': the same attentional move, applied to numerical and spatial ideas in storybooks.
Justice, L. M., & Kaderavek, J. (2002). Using shared storybook reading to promote emergent literacy.
Teaching Exceptional Children, 34(4), 8–13
Establishes shared storybook reading as a well-documented, high-value instructional routine in early childhood settings.
Justifies shared reading as the ecologically valid context in which we study whether preservice teachers notice embedded mathematics.
Torbeyns, J., Op't Eynde, E., Depaepe, F., & Verschaffel, L. (2024). Preschool teachers' mathematical questions during shared picture book reading.
ZDM: Mathematics Education, 56(5), 907–921
Forty-three Flemish preschool teachers each read one mathematical and one non-mathematical picture book with 5–6 year olds. Teachers asked more mathematical questions with the mathematical book, but their questions were more abstract with the non-mathematical book, and most questions sat at the two lowest abstraction levels (Blank et al., 1978).
Research questions
- Do teachers ask more mathematical questions with mathematical vs. non-mathematical picture books?
- Does the abstraction level of those questions differ by book type?
- Is the number of mathematical questions associated with their abstraction level?
- Is question quantity associated with teaching experience, MCK, MPCK, beliefs, and specialized observation (SOP)?
- Is abstraction level associated with those same professional competencies?
Methods
- Participants: 43 preschool teachers in Flanders, Belgium, with children aged 5–6.
- Design: teaching experience recorded; MCK, MPCK, beliefs, and SOP measured with dedicated instruments; two shared readings per teacher (one mathematical, one non-mathematical book).
- Analysis: all utterances coded, retaining teacher-initiated mathematical prompts; counts and abstraction levels computed; Wilcoxon signed-rank tests for RQ1–RQ2; regression for RQ3–RQ5.
Results & conclusions
- More mathematical questions with the mathematical book.
- Higher abstraction with the non-mathematical book; most questions fell in the two lowest of four abstraction levels.
- Question quantity was not associated with abstraction level, nor with professional competencies overall.
- Within the mathematical book, higher MCK and MPCK related to more questions, and higher SOP to more abstraction; within the non-mathematical book, more experience related to more abstraction.
- All teachers asked at least one mathematical question — under an explicit instruction to stimulate mathematical development.
The closest empirical parallel to our design. Notably, every teacher asked at least one mathematical question — but they were instructed to stimulate math development, suggesting expectation drives noticing. Their scenario-based MPCK instrument and video-based noticing task are useful models for our own items.
Green, K. B., & Towson, J. P. (2022). Easy as 1, 2, 3, ABC: Integrating number sense and shared storybook readings.
Young Exceptional Children, 25(2), 88–100
Reviewed by Edwynne
Shows how the REFRAME strategy — Read and review the book in advance, Explore the text and illustrations, Find the math, Read the book to students, Ask questions, Math activities, Evaluate learning — weaves number sense (counting, estimating, judging magnitude, simple computation, sense of quantity) into ordinary storybook readings.
Methods
- Participants: 14 preschoolers evaluated and assessed for math skills through comprehension and math questions based on the REFRAME strategy.
Results & conclusions
- Children used mathematics talk (counting and saying numbers) during reading.
- Children acquired early counting skills from the method, with gains in both early counting and listening comprehension.
The REFRAME strategy is directly replicable in our research, and its outcome — children with mathematics difficulties gaining early counting and listening comprehension — is exactly the instructional move we ask whether preservice teachers are motivated to make.
Russo, T., & Russo, J. (2018). Narrative-first approach: Teaching mathematics through picture story books.
Australian Primary Mathematics Classroom, 23(2), 8–14
Argues for letting the story lead: read the picture book for narrative enjoyment first, then draw the mathematics out of the shared experience rather than mining the text for content.
Supports our focus on ordinary storybooks where mathematics is not the stated purpose, and frames noticing as something that happens inside an authentic reading experience.
Casey, B., Erkut, S., Ceder, I., & Young, J. M. (2008). Use of a storytelling context to improve girls' and boys' geometry skills in kindergarten.
Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 29(1), 29–48
An experimental study showing that embedding geometry instruction in a storytelling context improved kindergarteners' spatial and geometry skills relative to comparison conditions.
Evidence that story context measurably strengthens spatial-mathematical learning — raising the stakes on whether teachers spot those spatial opportunities in the first place.
Turker-Biber, B., Akinci-Cosgun, A., & Aydin-Bolukbas, F. (2021). Examination of mother–child math talks' content and process during shared book reading.
International Journal of Educational Methodology, 7(3), 501–515
Reviewed by Yoselin
Nine mothers read two math-themed storybooks with their children (48–66 months) at home, recording the interaction by phone. Researchers transcribed and analyzed the videos by content (counting, quantities, addition/subtraction, etc.) and process (asking, answering, feedback, explaining, commenting), followed by a 12-question interview with each mother.
Research questions
- What is the content of mother–child math talks during shared book reading at home (counting, quantities, addition, subtraction, and so on)?
- What is the process of those math talks (asking questions, answering, giving feedback, explaining, commenting)?
Methods
- Participants: nine mothers, each with one child aged 48–66 months enrolled in kindergarten; demographics (education, socio-economic status, occupation) recorded.
- Design: mothers filmed two shared readings of math-motivated storybooks at home at times of their choosing; videos transcribed; 12-question post-interview with each mother.
- Analysis: math talks organized into content and process categories; frequencies computed per category and per storybook.
Results & conclusions
- Mothers with higher education levels noticed and incorporated more math concepts during reading.
- Children who received positive reinforcement were more motivated to engage with the math ideas.
- The most frequent content category was numbers and counting, followed by addition and subtraction.
- Home shared reading is a genuine opportunity for children to build math skills — and for adults to notice them.
Shows how parental figures — respected authority figures — notice and act on math concepts in shared reading, and that education level predicts noticing. If mothers at home can notice embedded math, our preservice teachers may do the same at school; and children's engagement grew with positive reinforcement, linking noticing to motivation.
Björklund, C., & Palmér, H. (2022). Teaching toddlers the meaning of numbers — connecting modes of mathematical representations in book reading.
Educational Studies in Mathematics, 110, 525–544
Reviewed by Edwynne
The authors designed their own picture book embedding principles of variation theory, then read it with toddlers (ages 1–3) over a year. Video-recorded readings were qualitatively analyzed to trace how children took up the meaning of numbers through connected modes of representation.
Research questions
- What are the conditions for making modes of representations into resources for learning during book reading?
Methods
- Participants: toddlers aged 1–3 read with over the course of one year.
- Design: purpose-built picture book designed with variation-theory principles; repeated shared readings video-recorded.
- Analysis: qualitative analysis of recorded reading sessions.
Results & conclusions
- Toddlers could engage with the meaning of numbers when modes of representation (spoken numbers, finger patterns, pictures, symbols) were deliberately connected during reading.
Demonstrates that very young children can build number meaning during shared reading when the adult deliberately connects representations — evidence that what an adult notices and points out during reading shapes the mathematics children can learn.
Björklund, C., & Palmér, H. (2020). Preschoolers' reasoning about numbers in picture books.
Mathematical Thinking and Learning, 22(3), 195–213
Reviewed by Edwynne
Examines how preschoolers reason about numbers when reading picture books, analyzing how the books' representations of quantity support — or constrain — children's numerical reasoning during shared reading.
Shows that the mathematical affordances of picture books only become learning when children are supported to reason about them — reinforcing our claim that teacher noticing is the gateway between embedded math and instruction.
Erikson Institute Early Math Collaborative (2024). Big Ideas of Early Mathematics.
Erikson Institute
A research-based framework that organizes early mathematics into coherent Big Ideas — including quantity, pattern, comparison, and spatial relationships — giving educators a shared vocabulary for recognizing mathematical opportunities in everyday contexts.
Supplies the conceptual vocabulary used in our survey: participants are introduced to the Big Ideas before noticing items, so their responses can be compared against a common research-based framework rather than personal definitions of mathematics.