Language And Math

For many years now, I have heard concerns from parents and teachers about problems children with hearing loss are having with learning math. They are good at calculations but not good at word problems. I have been married to a mathematics educator (Rob Madell) for almost 50 years so I understand a fair amount about this problem.

At an AGBell convention a number of years ago, I attended several sessions in which presenters talked about the problems children with hearing loss were having with math. It became clear to me that the presenters did not understand that the problems with math were really language problems. I came home and convinced my husband that he needed to write something to help people understand about the relationship between language and math. He published a series of five articles in the Volta Review (2010-2011) designed to help people working with children with hearing loss and their families understand about the language of math and how to teach children. Just in the last few weeks I have again heard from parents concerned about their children’s math skills. The children were doing well in other subjects but not in math.

Solving arithmetic word problems involves understanding the language

Word problems offer a large array of language development opportunities. For example: after Halloween we have two children who each have collected candy. Rob asks each child how many pieces of candy corn they have. Mary says she has 4 and John says he has 9. Rob asks John how many more he has than Mary. John is confused and repeats the answer 9. It is clear that he does not understand the question. Rob says “yes, you have 9, but I want to know how many more you have than Mary.” John understands the concept of “more” as in “I want more” but not in this context. Rob than suggest that they match up the candies so that it would be more clear. John’s first 4 candies were lined up with Mary’s and then John’s left over candies were lined up. Rob asked John “How many extra candies do you have?” John counted them and said “5”. Rob then said “That’s right, you have 5 extra, you have 5 MORE”. As we review and repeat, we use the language describing how many “more” John has and he learns this new use of the word “more”.

A multiplication example

Rob gives a problem to Rose. “Suppose you have 3 necklaces and 4 scarves. You want to get dressed up and wear one necklace and one scarf. How many different outfits can you make with the 3 necklaces and 4 scarves?” Rose uses red and blue blocks to represent the scarves and necklaces and can match up 3 pairs but there is one red block (scarf) left over. She doesn’t know what to do with it. She does not understand that the intent was to make all possible combinations.

Use physical models

1. All word problems can be represented by physical models. Helping children represent word problems with blocks or other manipulatives can help them understand those problems.
2. Most math educators believe that children need to learn to solve word problems before they start to memorize the corresponding math facts.
3. If you pay careful attention to the problem, you will see that, although many word problems are similar, the way you would manipulate the blocks are different, so the language will be different.

One more thing

In a lot of the math tests I have reviewed, the first part of the tests involve calculations with word problems at the end. Problems with solving the word problems may be a combination of language issues and may also indicate a need for extended test time to give our children some additional time to think about the word problems.

For more information on the language of math see Volta Review articles by Rob Madell, 2010 and 2011, and www.robmadell.com.