Reading well is connected to math

This has become a very common conversation at work, but it’s amazing how many people don’t realize how true it is.

If a student cannot comprehend what they’re reading, then they have diminished chances of doing well in math.

It sounds cruel, but it’s true. These days, about half of all math classes is dealing with word problems. The most important step in solving any word problem is understanding what information you’ve been given, and what the problem is asking for. Because this is how students will encounter math in the real world, we put a lot of emphasis on it in math classes. So often, though, the student gets frustrated by the problem because they don’t understand what it’s saying at all. It’s more than just, “Oh my gosh, it’s a word problem. I can’t do this!” It’s literally, “How many apples does Tom have? Well, Jane has 3 and they have 10 all together. But the problem doesn’t tell me how many apples Tom has, so I can’t solve this.” (Yes, I’ve really run into this with students. A lot of my students, actually.)

While math class can prepare students to deal with solving equations, being able to comprehend what the question is asking and then being able to successfully translate that into a solvable equation requires a little help from reading class. (Math is an interdisciplinary subject. Who knew?) Unfortunately, because math is still “scary”, even the student who does extremely well at reading comprehension can sometimes be thrown by a word problem simply because they’ve told themself math is scary.