What do teachers see — and what do they do about it?

Do preservice early childhood teachers recognize the mathematical ideas — quantity, comparison, spatial reasoning, patterning, measurement — embedded in shared storybook reading?

Analogous to print referencing (Justice & Ezell, 2004), math referencing directs attention to numerical and spatial ideas embedded in illustrations and narrative structure. We examine whether preservice teachers see those ideas at all.

Does noticing differ between planned contexts — where math integration is the stated intent — and spontaneous contexts, where the mathematics must be discovered in the moment?

This distinction separates a teacher's endorsement of math-infused reading in principle from the perceptual act of noticing mathematics when no one has flagged it.

Do preservice teachers feel motivated and prepared to act on the mathematical opportunities they notice?

Noticing without action changes nothing for children. We examine how self-efficacy and beliefs about early mathematics relate to instructional intention.

• H1

  Participants will report stronger endorsement of planned math integration than spontaneous noticing.

• H2

  Self-efficacy will positively predict motivation to integrate math during shared storybook reading.

• H3

  Belief in the importance of early math will predict both noticing and instructional intention.

Together these test the noticing–motivation relationship: whether what teachers see, and what they believe, translates into instructional intention during shared reading.