Reading in Math
Read-alouds
Getting students to read about content in Mathematics is powerful for introducing new ideas and vocabulary to students.
So often, when we introduce a new topic to students, our focus can be centered on ensuring kids walk away with tangible repeatable skills — mostly to carry out computation. Educators well-versed in math processes and practices (NCTM; CCSS) will recognize that while skills and fact fluency is important, it is only a subset of what young mathematicians need to be successful.
Developing conceptual understanding and communicating mathematical thinking (verbally and in writing) are key practices for students. Read-alouds help to support these practices. They also create “memory moments” or events that students associate with learning, that make recalling knowledge more accessible. Books, particularly stories, naturally create contexts for students to relate math topics back to. The ability for students to access these texts independently after they’ve been read as a group, is key for reinforcing the ideas within.
Students’ understanding of math concepts and vocabulary through reading stories can be further deepened by having them reflect on these read-alouds through activities like journaling, creating their own version of the story, extending the ending, acting it out, or completing other art-based projects. A helpful teaching move is to refer back to the stories during lessons or when students share their thinking to make connections and draw conclusions. The books can create an anchor point of understanding for all students.
For book recommendations by topic, checkout the Read Aloud page.
Close Reading Strategies
Summarizing. Highlighting or underlining key details. Writing notes in the margins. Visualizing the author’s words.
Sounds like steps for teaching kids reading comprehension strategies for their books, right? Those same skills are applicable to reading math problems thoroughly and accurately.
Understanding Word problems and Problem Solving questions (yes they are different - post about them coming soon!), can be difficult for students even if the math involved is simple. Accessing these kinds of math problems is key to student success, and that only occurs if they are equipped with the tools to understand the context of the problem, and determine what they are being asked to solve. Close Reading Strategies support students in doing just that.
Summarize
This initial step occurs after students have read the problem in its entirety. Teachers can model for students succinctly stating the situation in the problem, while omitting numbers. Leaving numbers out of the summary is important to slow students down, and getting them to focus on the story rather than rushing to do operations.
List Details
Once they’ve understood the context of the problem, students should key-in on the numbers presented within it. Teachers should model for students underlining the figures in the problem, and annotating what they represent (total, factor, equal groups, difference, times as many as __, inches, etc.). It’s important to explicitly teach students that the numbers in a word problem represent something within the greater story, and that knowing what each figure represents can help us think about what we know, and what we need to solve. Another key detail to have students underline/highlight is the question itself.
Visualize
This step is important in both helping students organize the key details they’ve found into something they can use mathematically, and for solving. In the visualizing step, teachers should model for students how to use accurate and efficient math models that can help them solve. The area model for multiplying larger numbers, bar models for comparison problems, number lines for addition and subtraction, etc. Providing students with ample time to practice setting up these models, or differentiating by giving them premade graphic organizers, allows them to plug-in the information they’ve found and to begin solving. Asking students to add labels to the models helps to add more clarity to their work, and having them write an equation that matches the work they’ve done in the model deepens their mathematical understanding of the story.
Click here to download a PDF of the Close Reading Strategy Poster