Strategies To Support Reading Part One.

 Yesterday at our staff meeting, we got the results of the scores from last spring's state wide testing.  What surprised me is that twice as many students were in the proficient range in math as they were in language arts.  So the principle told us we need to support our students in developing better language skills by working on it in our subject.

My first thought came out as "I teach math, how to I support language arts in Math class.  I know about math texts being more concept dense than most textbooks.  I also know Math uses three levels of language but what about actual reading strategies?  How can we use the same strategies in our math classes that are used by reading teachers?  That was my big question so I found some suggestions.

1.  We can still identify characters and setting in word problems.  We can also activate the schema or the the topic of the action.  For instance if the word problem talks about two people going to a movie and buying tickets for the latest Lion King Movie, the characters are the two people, the setting is a movie theater and the schema is the change from buying two movie tickets.

2.  Reading teachers also have students identify the main idea, implied main idea or inference, and supporting details.  In math, the main idea would be the skill or concept needed to solve it. Students need the details or facts in order to make an inference.  The details are often the steps in a process needed to solve the problem or if its a word problem, the details are the pieces of information needed to solve the problem.

3. Often times, word problems require students to infer things from the information given in order to actually solve the problem.  For instance, Matilda and her three friends went to Hanover's Pizza to eat.  They all purchased the special all in one meal for $4.50 each, how much did they spend?  Many students see the number three so they so $4.50 times 3 for $13.50 rather than inferring Matilda is one of the people eating so it will be 4 x $4.50 or $17.50.

4. To help students improve their reading of word problems, work on having them reread the problem multiple times.  The first time they read, it is for the introduction, sort of like reading a travel guide to learn about a new place.  The second time is looking for specific information such as what explicit information has the problem provided.  The third time is to determine what it is they have to find.  The fourth time would be to see if there is anything they have to do before they can actually answer the question.

5.  It also helps to teach students to think aloud or talk to themselves as they read.  There is nothing wrong with talking to ones self to extract important information.

6. When reading the textbook it is good to teach students to make predictions based on the clues in the titles and subtitles and diagrams found in the book.  Once they've made predictions, one should then read the material and at the end, they can discuss how accurate their predictions were.

7.  Another strategy is to just look over the pages in the section to "see" what is there.  Another strategy is to make a reading guide with 5 to 7 statements covering key concepts of the material.  Students decide if each statement is true or false or if they agree or disagree with each statement.  They can look at each others answers, talk about them, prior to reading the material.  When they read the material, they have to prove or disprove the statements based on what they find in the section.

Tomorrow, I'll continue this topic with more reading strategies that can be used in reading.  Let me know what you think, I'd love to hear.  Have a great day.