The potential of mathematical picture books: a systematic analysis of their domain-specific picture book features

Abstract

Studies in the domain of early literacy and recently also mathematics point to the potential of picture book reading (PBR) activities for children’s early literacy resp. mathematical development. Contrasting the domain of early literacy, the contribution of picture book features to the effectiveness of PBR activities in the domain of mathematics is hardly studied. To increase our understanding of the topic, we systematically analysed the domain-specific features of 100 mathematical picture books. Our analyses pointed to the presence of features that previous studies assume to support and to hinder early mathematical development (Ward et al., 2017). These findings complement previous findings based on English mathematical picture books from the U.S. and offer important insights for future studies and educational practice.