Whole Language in the Mathematics Classroom?
The article, "Incorporating language arts into the mathematics curriculum: A literature survey," stated that "whole language teachers are those who believe in reading literature in the classroom and who attempt to integrate listening, speaking, reading, and writing across the curriculum. Literature and language skills, however, are often neglected in the mathematics area of the curriculum. Educators are now discovering ways to incorporate reading into mathematics through the use of children's literature." Reflecting on the curriculums we recently designed, were you able to integrate literature and language skills into your mathematics units? If so, how did you accomplish this? Do you agree that it is important to include whole language learning opportunities in the mathematics classroom? Why or why not?
posted by Anonymous at 1:55 PM
11 Comments:
I think using that using a whole language and a literacy approach in Math can be a very valuable tool. It adds to multisensory instruction as it requires children to think about math in different ways.
Marilyn Burns is an author who has great books with Math lessons for all different levels, while incorporating literature. She has also written a whole bunch of picture books herself that aid in developing lessons for various math concepts.
Last year, in 4th grade, I did a lesson about multiplication factors using the book " One Hundred Busy Ants" by Pinczes. Reading the story was a great way to get the kids to think and talk about multiplication factors. I created posters with the numbers from 1-50, and bought post it notes in two colors (one for odd and one for even numbers). Each child was in charge of a couple of numbers, figuring out all of its factors. Each factor was written on a post-it and then attached to its number. At the end, the children had the factors for all the numbers from 1-50 in the class as a guide. In addtion, as we color coded odds and even #'s, they had a better visual understanding of number and multiplication facts. And again, the storybook was a great way to begin my factor review lesson.
We didn't find any literature to help us with math for our integrated curriculum, and the use of language skills in the math component seemed minimal. We did require in the culminating project, a plan for a community garden plot, that students explain their decisions for the placement of plants (how many inches apart should the seeds be planted, how high they will grow, etc.) as well as a list of materials needed, which would require using measurement units.
For our unit, which is heavily science-oriented, using non-fiction literature would probably be very useful. Understanding how to measure air temperature and space would be essential to understanding climate zones and biomes.
I do agree that it is important to incorporate whole language learning opportunities in math, because being able to explain problem-solving processes is a sign of deeper understanding and helps delineate reasoning. It can also connect math to students' lives and motivate them by making math interesting.
We also did not include literature as a part of our mathematics unit, but rather included our mathematics unit as a part of our literature. While this does not provide many of the opportunities discussed in the article aboout seeing math differently or providing additional opportunities for teacher assessment of students' understanding, I believe it will help our students understand how mathematics is a part of the world. It accomplishes, in a different way, what the literature mentioned in the article shows students: math in every-day life.
While I understand the value such literature can provide, I feel as though it would fit better into a different unit. It should definitely be incorperated into the classroom, but does not need to be included every time.
This comment has been removed by the author.
I only designed classes of social studies in which language and content were integrated. In the bilingual class we will be teaching, social studies classes were always taught in Chinese. The students in the class are Chinese American children who speak Chinese at home. Therefore, students have difficulties in learning English. Considering the language plan of the class and students’ language background, most of my classes will be conducted in Mandarin Chinese and important terminologies and main points will be emphasized in English. In this way, students can learn vocabularies in both Chinese and English. I agree that it is important to include whole language learning opportunities in the classroom. Students should develop vocabulary and language patterns of a particular content area through classes of that subject. Moreover, mastering language use of a particular subject will improve effectiveness of students’ learning of that subject.
i find integrating literature into any subject is an amazing way to reach kids at other levels. I have a bin of math books in my classroom and try to make a literature connection at least once a week. Some of the books available are awesome, while others can be boring. I have noticed that a lot of the same math books are used by many teachers, which makes the kids hear it year after year. Although this could be a bad thing for other books, this causes them to memorize the main point the book was getting across, and ends up being a wonderful resource. I also find it is a good idea to try incorporating music into my lessons for the same reasons. It can be a challenge to find math books for certain topics, books seem to be available that really enhance lessons.
Although I do not teach math, I have come across math literature in the classroom. For example, there are counting books that range from sea life to M&M's. The children really appear to eat these books up. I have also observed a teacher who color codes different shapes and numbers thus incorporating art and math as well. The children love to color the differnt numbers and shapes. I think it is an excellent way to reach a child who prefers reading or art to math. Growing up I always thought math was boring, however I did not have exposure to manipulatives or intregrated curriculum.
This is Katie Delahunty again who wrote the above comment even though it says Brian! Sorry!
I definitely think it's important to incorporate literature and language skills that are ELA related into math class. English and math seem to weigh the most out of all the subject matters in regular classroom. Students need to pass state tests in these two area to move on to the next grade. Most students are able to pass the ELA exam but many struggle to do well in math. This is because the language skills taught in ELA are also reinforced in Social Studies, Science, and many other classes. However, math is extremely different and need to be learned sequentially. Students don't get enough practice to get familiarize with the format of doing math. They also don't have the opportunities to use them in other classes. Therefore, using literature to teach math is very a good way for students to learn math, it also allow them to absorb the knowledge through familiar method, such as reading and writing.
Our mathematics units is about shapes. We found a very cute children's book that we will be able to incorporate into our curriculum. The book is about a young Chinese girl who takes the reader tour around her neighborhood. Throughout the tour, she discovers and identifies different shapes she sees in the neighborhood. We plan to use this book as a read aloud. Hoping students will be able to see a connection between their life and the shapes around them. Then ask students to discover and identify shapes around the classroom. At the end, we will conclude our unit by taking students out on a field trip, and have them observe different shapes around their neighborhood.
I'm all for integrating language skills in math because I tend to think that alot of the problems some students have with math is almost caused by the way they talk about it. The language they use to describe math processes or the way they interpret the words we use to explain math sentences, word problems, etc., really influences the way students internalize math concepts.
In our curriculum we didn't think about using books, but we used the newspaper. Our students will be reading and interpreting information found in graphs in the newspaper. So this is another form of literacy that will also connect with reading habits usually found in the home. We also made sure to teach language structures that are appropriate for describing certain math sentences. So we focused on language of comparison like "greater/less than" and "más/menos que" "hot, hotter, hottest" and "caliente, más caliente." And we tried to make sure to have a writing component to as many math lessons as possible. So I think we did a pretty good job.
The integration of listening, speaking, reading, and writing across the
curriculum is essential to a student’s learning. It is often times neglected
in mathematical education because incorporating several skills into lesson plans can be
very time consuming. This was the case when we were planning our
curriculums. We had to spend extra time formulating ideas that could potentially be good
learning experiences. Especially when it comes to a subject like math, which happens to
be a standardized subject, you have to abide and teach it a certain way (using specific text
books, materials, standards, etc). It takes creativity and time to tactfully lesson plan ways
that would be more meaningful to a group of particular students. I know for the students
I work with, in efforts to fully and critically engage students with challenging
mathematical problems I have had to reword certain mathematical problems. Often times
I have used the student’s names, the names of favorite sport teams, pets, cartoon
characters to help motivate them. By rewording the problems it has helped my students
grasp and work out word problems. In that sense, I do find incorporating language,
speaking, reading, and writing is beneficial in helping students relate better to the
material.
Post a Comment
<< Home