Catherine Brieger Stern (1894–1973) was a German psychologist and educator. Born under the name Käthe Brieger, she developed sets of

mathematical manipulatives In mathematics education, a manipulative is an object which is designed so that a learner can perceive some mathematical concept by manipulating it, hence its name. The use of manipulatives provides a way for children to learn concepts throug ...

similar to

Cuisenaire rods Cuisenaire rods are mathematics learning aids for students that provide an interactive, hands-on way to explore mathematics and learn mathematical concepts, such as the four basic arithmetical operations, working with fractions and finding divisor ...

for children to use in building up their number sense and knowledge of arithmetic. Her book, ''Children Discover Arithmetic'' (1949) was used by others to work on the problems that children face when learning

arithmetic Arithmetic () is an elementary part of mathematics that consists of the study of the properties of the traditional operations on numbers— addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, exponentiation, and extraction of roots. In the 19th ...

. In 1938, she emigrated to the United States. From 1940 to 1943, she was a research assistant to

Max Wertheimer Max Wertheimer (April 15, 1880 – October 12, 1943) was an Austro-Hungarian psychologist who was one of the three founders of Gestalt psychology, along with Kurt Koffka and Wolfgang Köhler. He is known for his book, ''Productive Thinking'', and f ...

at the

New School for Social Research The New School for Social Research (NSSR) is a graduate-level educational institution that is one of the divisions of The New School in New York City, United States. The university was founded in 1919 as a home for progressive era thinkers. NSSR ...

Publications

* ''Children Discover Arithmetic'', Catherine Stern,

Harper & Row Harper is an American publishing house, the flagship imprint of global publisher HarperCollins based in New York City. History J. & J. Harper (1817–1833) James Harper and his brother John, printers by training, started their book publishin ...

, 1949. * ''Experimenting with Numbers'', Catherine Stern, Margaret Stern and Toni S. Gould.

Houghton Mifflin Co. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (; HMH) is an American publisher of textbooks, instructional technology materials, assessments, reference works, and fiction and non-fiction for both young readers and adults. The company is based in the Boston Financ ...

, 1950 * ''Structural Arithmetic I, II, III, Teachers Guide and Workbooks'', with M. Stern and T. Gould. Houghton Mifflin Co., 1952 * ''Children Discover Arithmetic'', Catherine Stern and Margaret B. Stern. Harper & Row, 1971. * ''Structural Reading Program, Teachers Guides and Workbooks, A through E'', with M. Stern and T. Gould,

Random House Random House is an American book publisher and the largest general-interest paperback publisher in the world. The company has several independently managed subsidiaries around the world. It is part of Penguin Random House, which is owned by Germ ...

, 1963. * ''Children Discover Reading'', with T. Gould, Random House, 1965.

References

1894 births 1973 deaths German psychologists German women psychologists Educational psychologists 20th-century psychologists {{Germany-psychologist-stub