Why Teaching Math Vocabulary is Important Even in Elementary School
Early on in my teaching career, I didn’t quite understand the importance of teaching elementary math vocabulary to my 2nd and 3rd graders. I knew they wouldn’t be standing around at the playground discussing addends and minuends, and I thought if these terms were not going to be used in everyday life, how important can they really be?
Yes it’s true that to some extent students need to know academic vocabulary to be able to answer test questions (“What is the sum?” for example), but it does go beyond that. Teaching students vocabulary words when introducing new concepts in math can really help them understand the content better because you are able to explain things more clearly.
In this blog post I’m sharing:
How to incorporate academic vocabulary into your elementary math class
Examples of how to introduce and use vocabulary terms during a math lesson
3 Different options for arranging your word wall
So let’s take a closer look at how you can make teaching math vocabulary part of your routine without it feeling like additional work, because we all know you have enough on your plate as it is!
How to incorporate vocabulary into your elementary math class
Below are three options for studying vocabulary:
Have students write down the term and definition in the back of their math notebook. They can build their own personal glossary throughout the year to refer to.
Have students make math vocabulary flashcards. They can practice their flashcards if they finish an activity early. Create a class poster, “What do I do when I’m finished?” and add, “Practice Math Flashcards” as an option (I personally loved this one)!
Include the vocabulary words on your anchor charts so students can refer back to them throughout each unit.
Examples of how to introduce and use vocabulary terms during a math lesson
So what does it look like to introduce a vocabulary word and use it to explain a lesson? Take a look at each video below where I demonstrate how to use the word digit in my place value lessons, and how to use the words numerator and denominator in my 3rd grade fractions lesson.
3 Different options for arranging your word wall
During my first year teaching, I initially built a word wall that was just organized alphabetically, but seeing words next to each other that were unrelated (pentagon and product, for example) made it difficult for students to recall what the term meant. Not to mention, I ran out of room very quickly and couldn’t decide which words to keep up and which ones to take down.
Below are three options you can use when creating a layout for your word wall:
Organize words by category (for example: fractions, measurement, geometry, financial literacy, number operations).
Work together to build thinking maps on posters throughout an entire unit showing how the vocabulary words are related and hang those on your word wall. Swap out each poster when you start a new unit.
If you are teaching a self-contained class, create three different sections on your word wall one for each subject: science, social studies, math. You can also incorporate the thinking maps strategy here and hang those thinking maps under each subject area.
Multi-flow thinking map in my financial literacy lesson
Bridge thinking map in my addition and subtraction lessons
If you are ready to try these strategies with your students, sign up below and get instant access to my elementary math vocab cards!
