Introduction
Reading and Math are the two subjects that are tested most on state standardized tests. That's not to say that other subjects are less important. However, it is common sense to know that you have to read in order to understand the information in textbooks for all subjects. It is also known that other subjects, specifically science, incorporate elements of mathematics. Since math and reading are considered by some to be the foundations of education, it is only fitting that the two should also complement each other. This unit is designed to take the difficult task of solving word problems and pair it with the general knowledge of reading. These two subjects can co-exist and understanding one can be the aid to understanding the other. This unit will look at math word problems through the lens of language arts.
In our middle school, that services grades six to eight, we have found a disconnect between the state standardized scores in Reading and the scores in Math. The students are the same, but for some reason the majority of them do much more poorly on the Math state test than the Reading state test. As a Reading teacher I am interested in this phenomenon. The Math teachers at our school are quite competent and work very hard at educating the students in the math curriculum. It is very disheartening for them and for the rest of the staff to see the results of the Math state test come out so low. There seems to be ample discussion about what these results mean and how we can fix them. However, for the past few years the scores have not increased substantially.
As a Reading teacher looking in, it seems to me that the students are not connecting the math calculations they do in class with the same calculations placed in the form of word problems found on the state test. Perhaps this is where assistance can be given. The Reading and English departments know language. Our middle school has both a Reading department and an English department with the teachers of each subject focusing on different parts of the curriculum. (I'm aware that many schools don't have different departments and that some teachers fill the shoes of both departments. For ease of reading of this unit I will refer to both departments as a unified Language Arts department.) As Language Arts teachers, we study and interpret the meaning of literature for a living. We translate this knowledge to our students. If we combine the knowledge of language from the Language Arts teachers with the knowledge of computations from the Math teachers, we can create a powerful curriculum that benefits all types of learners.
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