Reading comprehension and Math

Yes, I realize we expect students to arrive in high school being able to read at grade level, have a good vocabulary, and have an equally developed comprehension in reading.  Unfortunately, that isn't always true.

It is also known that just because a student is able to decode words well, it does not mean their comprehension level are the same.  Over the past few years, researchers have discovered it is important to have a good reading comprehension level to do well in math.

In general students with who do well in reading comprehension may not always be able to apply it to a wide variety of material unless their have developed a wide background knowledge and vocabulary. When reading normal books, writers leave out certain details with the understanding their readers will fill in the missing details based on their prior knowledge and experience but if they don't have the background knowledge they will have trouble relating to the material. I've noticed here in Alaska, students understand going to the store to shop but they don't understand taking a bus to get to the shopping mall because in their village the local store will have clothing and to get their you ride a ATV or snow machine.

There is research indicating that students who are on grade level with their reading, writing, and language skills do better in math and science because there appears to be a connection between certain types of linguistic skills and math skills.  On the other hand,  it has been found that students who have poor oral skills have difficulty learning material that is presented verbally regardless of the level of their calculation skills.

If a student has  good reading comprehension, they are able to acquire new knowledge much easier because they are able to relate the new with what they already know.  In addition, they can complete word problems and tasks with less effort.  So if they struggle with reading comprehension, they tend to struggle with tasks and word problems that require mathematical reasoning.

There is also research to indicate that older students who struggle with solving word problems, or written tasks, it is often a lack of reading skills that is at the root of the problem.  One researcher found that by working on reading comprehension skills with high schoolers, their math scores improved by almost 15 percent. This makes sense because high school students are taking more and more tests that require them to justify their answers, comprehend situations and contexts so without good reading comprehension skills, they may not understand the test questions.

For younger students, there is something called "Moved by Reading" to help them develop better understanding of mathematical word problems.  This two step process begins with concrete to more of an abstract application.  In the first step students read the word problem and then play with toys or objects to recreate the situation of the word problem.  This method helps them create a lot of information in their minds so they understand the problem better.  The second step, is to ask them to create images in their mind of the problem.  One effect of this method is to improve reading comprehension and it also increased student understanding of math problems within context while learning to extract the necessary information.

So it might be worth talking to the reading teacher to get some ideas for incorporating certain reading comprehension strategies into the classroom to help students improve their test results.  Let me know what you think, I'd love to hear.  I'll be back with some strategies one can incorporate into the classroom.