An investigation of teachers, students, and parents' reading styles of mathematical expressions: The Case of fractions

The aim of this study is to examine how secondary school mathematics teachers, other subject teachers, seventh grade secondary school students and parents read mathematical expressions. Holistic multiple case study design, one of the qualitative research method designs, was used. Twenty-five mathematics teachers, twenty-five other subject teachers, twenty-five seventh grade secondary school students and twenty-five parents were interviewed using purposive sampling method. The participants were asked three main questions about fraction concept, multiplication and division operations in fractions to reveal their reading styles of mathematical expressions. Content analysis method was used to analyse the data. Descriptive statistics were used in the presentation of the findings and quotations from the participants were included. The findings of the study showed that the procedural literal reading were mainly used in reading mathematical expressions. The majority of the participants, including mathematics teachers, had difficulty in producing different forms of reading and could not offer second, third and fourth reading. It was found that the number of participants who read the mathematical expressions at the conceptual level was very few. There was no significant difference between the reading styles of secondary school mathematics teachers and other participants. Considering the fact that verbal language is predominantly used in the classroom, the results of this study reveal that both the awareness and competences of mathematics teachers towards reading mathematical expressions need to be developed. In order for teachers', students' and parents' mathematics reading to develop conceptually and for their reading styles to be synchronised in a meaningful way, it is suggested that conceptual reading should be integrated into teaching materials, especially textbooks.