Reading in Math Class

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Reading in Math Class
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Why is Reading in Math So Difficult?
Besides using the same skills as reading in other
content areas, students must use additional,
content-specific reading skills to understand a
math text. Students must be able to

• read from left to right
• read from right to left (e.g. number lines)
• read from top to bottom or vice versa (e.g.
  tables)
• read diagonally (e.g. graphs)

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• Math texts contain more concepts per page than
  any other type of text.

• Math concepts are often abstract, which makes it
  difficult for students to visualize their meaning.

• Students must be proficient at decoding numeric
  and nonnumeric symbols as well as words.

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• Authors of math texts generally write in very
  brief, concise styles
• - lots of information in each sentence
• - little redundancy
• - If students read math texts too
  quickly (like they might a text from another
  class), they may miss significant details,
  explanations, and the fundamental logic.

• The page layout may hinder comprehension. When
  students scan text looking for examples, they may
  skip worded passages which contain essential
  information.

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• Many math textbooks are written above the
  grade-level for which they are used. The
  vocabulary and sentence structure are often very
  difficult for the students using them.

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Example Problems
The tail of a kite steadies the kite in the air.
One of the longest kites is a Chinese dragon
kite. The length of one particular dragon kite,
including the tail, is 21 ft. If the tail is 15
ft. longer than the kite body, how long is the
kite body? You and your cousin decide to go on a
biking trip on a three-day weekend. You bike 32
miles in two days. On the second day, you biked
9 miles more than you did on the first day. How
many miles did you bike each day? Amanda and
Jessica went shopping at the mall. They decided
to only shop at stores that were having a sale.
At one of the sales, shirts were marked down 4.
You bought 3 shirts. A sales tax of 2 was added
to your bill, bringing the total cost to 50.
Find the price of the shirts before the sale.
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Definition Chart
Facts/Characteristics
Definition (in own words)
WORD ____________
Examples
Non-Examples