I gave a district math test the other day. The district gives these tests every few months to help teachers determine what areas of the current curriculum are giving the students trouble. As I was looking over the test, I noticed that all of the 29 problems were word problems and it caused me to wonder: Is it math or is it reading?
I’m 40, and when I was in elementary school math was just math. You learned how to add, subtract, multiply and divide. You completed each of these math skills with both large numbers and small numbers. Success was based on your ability to actually “do the math.”
These days, however, doing math is something very different. Sure, you have to be able to add, subtract, multiply and divide, but children are expected to master those seemingly simple skills long before third grade, because that’s only a small part of what the modern math student is required to do.
Gone are the days of rote memorization of multiplication facts and page after page of ciphering. It is no longer good enough to simply have students who can do pencil and paper mathematics.
Oh no, today’s young mathematicians must contend with an ever-changing mathematical world. A world in which “doing the math” means reading paragraph long story problems, extrapolating the important information, organizing the relevant date, deciphering the correct combination of thinking skills necessary to arrive at a reasonable solution, and then being able to write well enough to defend their answer.
I remember a time in the not too distant past, when there were some students who were good in math and some who were good in reading. However, due to the fact that reading comprehension is so deeply ingrained in modern mathematics, today’s student who struggles in reading is woefully ill prepared to handle the rigors of his daily math schedule.
Is this a bad thing? I don’t know.
On the one hand, shouldn’t the ability to read and understand what is being read be of the utmost importance in today’s scholastic setting?
On the other hand, a student who’s reading is below grade level can’t possibly hope to find any academic success in math due to the required reading.
This quandary is a daily source of anguish to a teacher who desperately wants to help each child find academic success in at least one area.
I just want the state of Texas to let me know…is it math or is it reading?
6 comments:
Great is the teacher unafraid to question the system. Fabulous is the teacher who questions the system in defense of the children.
Very good points there!
My 12 year old has always had trouble with reading comprehension... and her biggest problem in math is no surprise, story problems.
Very good question. I could see this coming five years ago when I retired as a second grade teacher.
Hopefully other teachers will ask these questions. If only the test designers would teach our students for one year in today's classrooms.
Proud of you,
Mom
BRAVO!! You are exactly right! I think I've said the same things in ARD meetings about my son. He's dyslexic and, I'm convinced, has some other learning disability we haven't been able to identify (unfortunately, it will take a lot of screaming and hollering on my part to get an accurate diagnosis). So, anything that involves reading gives him trouble. And, until they stop throwing more and more complicated material at him, I don't know if he will ever catch up. If he could just work on reading, writing and arithmetic, he'd probably do just fine. Needless to say, his Mother would also be much happier.
You are a very smart and courageous man. I knew I liked you!
Tina
Hugh,
If you are waiting for the state of Texas to give you a logical and meaningful answer to any of our education woes I suggest you get out of teaching now because that 'aint gonna happen in our lifetime.
Isn't that just a racist government trying to box out the foreign student who often scores a few strides ahead of the local crew in Math, especially in computation. One third grade teacher to another, I think it is great that Math is more than just the numbers, but let's at least attach a visual model to those story problems to help the challenged reader. Maybe what we should be doing is looking a little more closely at Math programs in other countries and find out why theirs are working so much better than ours. Who fills up the top posts in Math and hard science graduate programs? Not graduates of U.S. schools. Our brain drain on the rest of the world will last only as long as our universities continue to pay professors top dollar. Other countries are catching onto this fact quickly. It starts in the elementary. Let's get to work!
I enjoy the blog.
And regardless of any negativity here, I am a patriot.
Chris
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