ABSTRACT
This chapter presents the stories of classrooms and the children in them to illustrate some of the practices of highly effective teachers of mathematics. The vignettes of classrooms will be drawn from a research project that was designed to closely examine the practices of "highly effective" teachers of mathematics with young children. The teachers were first identified as highly effective based on the measurable improvements in children's mathematical learning over two consecutive years of the Early Numeracy Research Project (ENRP). During the final year of the project a case study was undertaken to identify the characteristics of effective teachers. Teacher behaviours that promoted classroom interactions that stimulated mathematical thinking and reflection in the context of high teacher expectations were at the heart of the study. Four elements of the research literature that underpins the study are briefly described: the characteristics of effective teachers of mathematics, questioning, listening, and a perspective of young learners.
