Customer Reviews

Comprehending Math: Adapting Reading Strategies to Teach Mathematics, K-6

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This is a great resource for linking reading comprehenshion strategies with math instruction. Vingettes of lessons for each strategy are provided. This book is a "must have" for elementary teachers!

In Comprehending Math, the author, uses reading comprehension strategies in order to get students to be the ones making the connections and asking questions in mathematics through "The Braid Model of Problem Solving." Throughout chapters 2,3 and 4, he explains pieces of "The Braid Model of Problem Solving," and adding on to this model in each chapter. The chapters following use the model to explain examples with student work.
The most useful piece of information encompasses the entire book and that is this idea of 'braiding' together language, thinking and mathematics to develop "The Braid Model of Problem Solving." And there are actual outlines given at the end of Chapters 2, 3 and 4 that are very useful, and even points out in the outline what was newly acquired from that chapter.
I really liked that I was able to find an entire book focusing on math comprehension, instead of it just being one of the other disciplines in an example of reading comprehension in other disciplines. I think if you need some help in trying to find ways to get students motivated into thinking about mathematics, then this is an excellent book because it doesn't say this is how you must teach this topic and that topic, instead it provides a helpful outline that could even be interpreted, not only in K-6, but in 7-12 as well.
There was one thing that I found this book to be lacking in and that was examples on how this concept of 'braiding' is used with English language learners. While this was missing, it didn't detract from the flow of book from one chapter to the next; so you could sit down and read the entire 186 pages in one sitting like I did.