Math Vocabulary

While Janice was working with our classes, she noticed that our teachers were all using different vocabulary to teach the same concept. We brought her observations up at a staff meeting for discussion. As a staff we wondered what would happen if we were intentional around using consistent vocabulary with students from grades K-7? Janice provided us with a list of vocabulary words that she recommended starting with, and from there our staff made decisions around which words we wanted to focus on at each grade level for this year.

With the help of our resource team, we created a set of word cards (each with a visual), that teachers could have posted in their classroom to share with students and refer to while teaching. We encouraged teachers to be intentional about using the math language with greater consistency, in the hopes that students would start using it (and understanding it) too.

We will continue to work on these vocabulary words in the fall, and build on what we started in the spring. We will also collect some data around students usage and understanding in November to assess how things are going.