Pat Hopfensperger—retired statistics teacher, author, and former chair of the ASA/National Council of Teachers of Mathematics Joint Committee on K–12 Education in Statistics and Probability—recently interviewed Stuart J. Murphy about Show and Tell! Great Graphs and Smart Charts: An Introduction to Infographics, his new book for children in grades K–4.

Murphy is a member of the authorship team of several programs published by Savvas Learning, including enVisionMATH, a comprehensive elementary school series, and Three Cheers for Pre-K, a school readiness curriculum.

Murphy is a visual learning strategist and children’s book author. In addition to his new book, he is the author of the award-winning MathStart series, which includes 63 children’s books that present mathematical concepts in the context of stories for students in pre-K through fourth grade.

He is also the author of Stuart J. Murphy’s I SEE I LEARN—a 16-book series for children in pre-K, kindergarten, and first grade with stories that focus on social, emotional, health and safety, and cognitive skills.

A graduate and trustee emeritus of the Rhode Island School of Design, Murphy has been a participant of and speaker for programs at the Reggio Emilia International Study Center, Harvard Graduate School of Education, National Association for the Education of Young Children, and Bologna International Children’s Book Fair. He has also been a frequent presenter at meetings of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics and other professional organizations.

Most of all, Murphy is an advocate for using visual learning strategies to help students succeed in school and life.
 
Hopfensperger’s grandchildren—Lucy (10) and Charlie (8)—can vouch for Murphy. They recently read Show and Tell! and said they liked the examples. Lucy liked the example about pets, and Charlie’s favorite was the burp graph. He laughed when he read, “Grandma – 50 burps!”

Read on as Hopfensperger digs deeper into Murphy’s motivations for teaching children about data and statistics.

Tell us a little about your background and your interest in mathematics and statistics.

I am a graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design. While art school may not seem like a likely starting point for an interest in mathematics and statistics, my early career soon led to a design position in educational publishing. That caused me to consider things like how visual images can engage children and how they acquire knowledge from visual representations such as charts and graphs. From that point on, my career has been focused on how to use visual learning techniques to help young children become more successful students. Show and Tell! is my 80th book.

After writing so many books about math, why did you decide that creating a children’s book on the topic of infographics was important?

As the world in which they live becomes increasingly more complex, I think young children need to know about data and statistics. Not the data of Wall Street or the statistics of the world, but information about their own lives and the things that interest them. Displays of data can become part of their language, part of how they can better understand things and communicate with others. When presented in creative infographics, these displays bring that information to life.

Do you think young children can easily grasp this notion of understanding and communicating data in a visual format?

Absolutely! Young children can easily create and interpret pictographs that use blocks or coins or buttons to represent quantities. They readily understand that the column with the most objects represents the largest quantity and can quickly identify what comes second and third. Similarly, simple bar graphs are easily understood and interpreted by very young children when making comparisons.

While pie charts and line graphs can be more complex, it isn’t long before children grasp which wedge of the entire circle is the biggest and therefore represents the most and which wedge is the smallest and represents the least. The same is true with the ups and downs of a line graph showing change over time. (“It’s hotter when the line is higher and cooler when it’s lower.” “The line went up when we were going faster. It came down when we were going slower.”)

Also, children love to take polls, such as how many children in their class are wearing red, blue, or neither. Favorite colors. Favorite foods. When they take the polls themselves, they know the data is real. It’s about them. This engages them and helps them make sense of the charts and graphs they create.

What are some of the benefits for children of learning about charts and graphs?

One of the greatest benefits is that charts and graphs allow children to understand something complex quickly and easily. Just think how much easier it is to grasp the meaning of a set of statistics from a graph than from a column of figures. Another is children see mathematics applied to real-life situations. No more, “When am I ever going to use that?”

Of course, there is the benefit of building foundational skills for things they will encounter later in life as they see charts and graphs used to present financial data, predict trends, and play a role in their decision-making processes. There is also a social benefit to creating charts and graphs as polls are taken among friends, family members, and others and the results are shared, interpreted, and enjoyed.

Can you talk a little bit about the four types of graphs covered in the book?

I decided to include simple versions of the four basic graph types: pictographs; bar graphs; pie charts or circle graphs; and line graphs. I wanted to demonstrate how these are the same and how they are different from one another—and how they can serve different purposes. I thought this would provide an easy entry for young students and help them to eventually be able to determine what type of graph might best communicate the data they have collected and the point they want to make.

My overall purpose was to help children learn what data is and how to collect and organize it, build appropriate graphs, and create engaging infographics. I also wanted to show the give and take—communicating the data they have collected (the give) and interpreting data others have shared (the take).

Do all graphs have similar parts?

Most bar graphs and line graphs include an x-axis across the bottom and a y-axis up the side. The x-axis often shows the categories being compared in the case of a bar graph or intervals of time on a line graph. The y-axis can show evenly spaced intervals of quantities, periods of time, or whatever other variable is being presented. This changes for circle graphs, which show segments of a whole, and pictographs, which represent quantities with symbols. For all charts and graphs, an engaging title will help explain the purpose of the graph and draw people into the information provided.

How do you anticipate this book will be used by both parents and teachers?

Teachers should find great value in using Show and Tell! to reinforce classroom work on data collection and statistics. I believe teachers, librarians, and others involved in the education of young children will find they can prepare group activities that include the skills taught in Show and Tell! Finally, I think children will use it to have fun as they show and tell their very own stories through the infographics they create.