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How do teachers know what is best for students in math? How many times have educators heard from parents and students that they are bad at math, they do not understand this new math, and/or they hate math? This is extremely disheartening. A great number of people are intimidated by math, but enjoy reading, writing, or social interaction (Vacca, Vacca, & Mraz, 2017). Educators are handed math standards from the state. Educators should think of how to deliver math instruction using different language domains because teaching math by incorporating the different language domains will assist all students in achieving, but particularly English Language Learners. Language domains include the productive and expressive languages of reading, writing, listening, and speaking (Mihai & Purmensky, 2016). These are important to include in the math content, because they will result in students developing conceptual understanding of math concepts and skills by learning content specific vocabulary, actively engaging in math class, and justifying and reasoning about math concepts.
Reading is a receptive skill. Teachers typically only employ this skill in English language arts, science, or social studies classes. Reading in math is essential for students to flourish (Mihai & Purmensky, 2019). Because reading is a starting point for all other language domains, students will be able to fluently write and speak in math content as they make connections with background knowledge and understand math academic vocabulary. Vaugh, Bos, and Schumann (2018) tell readers, “Academic vocabulary consists of those keywords that help you understand and learn more about the content area you are studying” (p. 135). Before math instruction, a teacher could utilize reading to build background knowledge, develop students’ schema, or introduce math content language or vocabulary. Typically, when educators hear about reading in a content area, they think about finding the “just right” book that will meet their needs (Minnery & Smith, 2018). They will spend countless hours looking for this book. On the contrary, it is acceptable to just read a sentence, paragraph, or a few pages. Students will benefit greatly from reading these short reading passages, because they will gain content knowledge and language (Minnery & Smith, 2018). Educators might consider using picture books and even technological resources such as Epic to bring reading into one’s mathematics classroom.
Active listening will motivate students to listen for the important points that the instructor or speaker is trying to convey. Between listening to teacher instruction, peer and teacher discussion, listening to books read aloud, and listening to video and audio recordings, our math students spend much of their math career listening. To ensure students are engaged during a listening activity, it is vital to provide students an activity to complete while listening (Mihai & Purmensky, 2019). During math instruction, a teacher could provide students with a graphic organizer, fill in the blank notes, or open-ended questions. The notes taken during listening activities in math will promote active listening within our students. This in turn will help students to be able to respond appropriately to the speaker (Routman, 2018). Teachers should create motivated and active learning during math lessons by intentionally involving active listening skills.
On the other side of the language domain scale is productive skills. One of these skills is writing. Writing is an indispensable skill in math. It is crucial for math students to be able to justify or reason about math using math language (DESE, 2019). Students need to be able to demonstrate math language fluently in their justifications. Writing is usually used in conjunction with the receptive skills of reading and listening. Some great resources or activities to encourage students to write like mathematicians are Text Response Task Cards and Math Journals or Learning Logs. Text Response Task Cards provide an opportunity for students to write like a mathematician in a real-world way. This activity provides prompts for students to write and practice math language fluently. Math Journals or Learning Logs explore a student's feelings about a particular math experience or concept. Educators may use this activity following the instruction of a skill in which they prompt students to write about their feelings about the skill or concept. Students will then express what is going well and what concerns they have for what they may not understand (Vacca, Vacca, Mraz, 2017). Having students write like mathematicians will lend itself to students being able to justify and reason about math.
The other productive skill is speaking. Promoting fluent, accurate math conversation skills is a necessity for the triumph and empowerment of our math students. Speaking in math class can be used to assess comprehension. Prior to speaking in class, it is paramount to allow students to have think time or a brainstorming session (Routman, 2018). Following this period, allow students to talk in small groups, to present a presentation, talk in a whole group repeating activity, or talk in role-playing activities. After these speaking activities, a math teacher would provide feedback to the students. A routine and/or learning opportunity that would lead to rich math conversations are Number Talks. To present a Number Talk, educators will present a concrete math model and provide students with think time. During this think time, students will be reasoning about math and making sense of numbers and concepts. Teachers will facilitate a math conversation following this think time. They will encourage students to talk about their reasoning they have presented. Students will verbalize their conceptual understanding of mathematical concepts (Hughes, 2018). There are a plethora of other math routines educators could use to spark math conversations.
Doing what is best for students in math class means teachers empower learners through the language domains to be successful and passionate learners. Incorporating the language domains into math class will bring enjoyment and interest into math for students who otherwise did not have this enjoyment before. The language domains will bring about achievement and success for our students in math.
References
Hughes, N. (2018). Classroom-Ready number talks for 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade teachers: 1,000 interactive math activities that promote conceptual and computational fluency. Ulysses Press
Mihai, F. M., & Purmensky, K. (2016). Course design for TESOL: A guide to integrating curriculum and teaching. University of Michigan Press.
Minnery, A. & Smith, A. T. (2018). Close sentence reading to foster decoding and comprehension. The Reading Teacher, 71(6), 743-748. https://doi:10.1002/trtr.1680
Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. (2019). Mathematics. https://dese.mo.gov/college-career-readiness/curriculum/mathematics#mini-panel-math1
Routman, R. (2018). Literacy essentials: Engagement, excellence, and equality for all learners. Stenhouse Publishers.
Vacca, R. T., Vacca, J. L., & Mraz, M. (2017). Content area reading: Literacy and learning across the curriculum (12th ed. ). Pearson Education, Inc.
Vaughn, S. R., Bos, C. S., & Schumm, J. S. (2018). Teaching students who are exceptional, diverse, and at risk in the general education classroom (7th ed.). Pearson Education, Inc.
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by
Amanda Cruz
The writing workshop is a block of instructional time in which students practice the writing process (Dorfman & Shubitz, 2019). Writing workshops can be used with young children and with adolescent students. This article provides a brief overview of instructional methods involved in the implementation of a writing workshop.
Conducting a Writing Workshop
Increased time to write with a focus on the strategies of pre-writing, drafting, revising, editing, and publishing are linked to increased writing quality (Graham & Harris, 2016). Unfortunately, students tend to demonstrate a decrease in enthusiasm for writing from early childhood to middle school and high school, due to less time to write and less engaging writing opportunities (Graham & Perin, 2007) so it is imperative to engage students in workshops that are personally and culturally meaningful. We recommend that it should be evident that multicultural literature is being read, enjoyed and analyzed across the curriculum. Writing workshops provide opportunities for lively inquiry and discussion about texts with diverse characters, settings, and cultures (Alexander, 2018).
Conversations
Harry
https://www.literacyworldwide.org/get-resources/making-sense-of-the-science-of-reading