A Comparative Study Of The New And Old Mathematics Textbooks For Elementary School

Textbook is the carrier of curriculum, its reform is of great importance to the new round basic education reform. In the context of new curriculum, making a comparative study of the new and old mathematics textbook for elementary school is siginificant to the current teacher training, future textbook compilation and perfection and research on the theory of curriculum for primary school.This study makes a relatively exhaustive comparison between the new and old textbooks in six aspects including compiling idea of textbook, structure of textbook, content of textbook and so on. Main conclusions are as follows:1. The old and new textbooks embody different conceptions of textbook, one is 'textbook is knowledge'and the other is 'textbook is model'.2 The structure of the new textbooks is more complex than that of the old textbooks.3. Concerning the content of textbook, the old textbooks emphasize the property of mathematization, however, new textbooks emphasize the property of being life-oriented.4. The presenting form of the old textbooks is single and serious, but that of the new textbooks is diverse and lively.5. The old textbooks have more exercises and less examples than the new textbooks do.6. The old textbooks take on subject-centred orientation, but the new ones take on children-centred orientation.Based on above conclusions, the author analyzes the causes of the differences existing between the old and new textbooks. Finally, some problems worthy of further consideration have been raised.