Reading and Math

  I don't know about you but I've had to teach reading in my math classroom because I work with ELL students.  In addition, I like to show students the forms that math appears in the real world.  Well, yesterday another teacher and I provided a 3 hours workshop at school on differentiation.

We covered the usual material such as tiered assignments, choice and menu boards but we provided another resource that most people are either unaware of or they don't know how to use it in their classroom.

The site, NEWSELA, is filled with tons of news reports from all over the world.  When I checked it out to get the URL for this blog, the first article I saw was on using drones to get aid where needed.  If you read this blog, you know I love technology but where this site differs from others is in that you can print each article out at a different reading level or place the material in a google doc for your students to download.

I typed "Mathematics" into the search bar and found a great article connecting art, math, and science.  It is offered at four different reading levels from low to high.  In addition, it offers a writing prompt designed to go with the reading level of the material.  It also offers a quiz to go with the material.

For my students I would create a worksheet of questions they can fill out as they read the material otherwise many will just skip through the reading, fudge the answer to the prompt and then whiz through the quiz.

I tried statistics in the search bar and discovered an article on the statistics of baseball.  It looks at how the score board displays information on the game and how it could be interpreted.  They author even went into how things have changed over time.

Then there is a second article focusing on the different forces in play in a baseball game.  Although the results do not always apply directly, there are so many articles you are sure to find some you can use in your classes.

I am going to start using these in my math classes to help improve their reading abilities and show them math is found outside the classroom.

Give the site a check.  If you like what you see, sign up for the free version and enjoy.