Worthless Words Not Needed for Math Learning
What if your biggest challenge in learning math was that you could not understand the words that the teacher used to convey math concepts? That the language in the math book was not your first language? Or that your learning disability involved difficulties with words and reading?” This graph (from the video below) indicates a very small portion of students from California who have a grasp of words in the classroom.
When teaching in a rural school in New Zealand, I was tasked to raise the learning level of indigenous students. I discovered (by accident) that my low achievers had excellent verbal ability and could offer quite complex mathematical solutions. But, when faced with a math test, they scored below the expected learning level. On sitting down with a student to review their errors, I found that they misunderstood several questions. In essence, they could not comprehend many of the words used in the test. For example, when asked, “What fraction of this diagram is shaded” they thought it meant the white portion. Language was the barrier to their Mathematics. There are many techniques we can use as teacher to expand a student’s math vocabulary, and to make the use of words a key part, and fun part, of classroom learning. Or, do we need words at all? I would urge any teacher of Mathematics to watch the video below and consider, with urgency, the place (or not) of words in their classroom: