Literacy in Math

by Darin Stockdill, PhD
Design Coordinator, CEDER

In this post, we’re taking up the following important question: “Why is literacy important in a math classroom?”  One approach I take when considering this kind of question is to immediately flip it on its head and ask, “Why would literacy NOT be important in a math classroom?”  Of course, answering either version of the question ultimately depends upon the definition of literacy being used.  In other words, whether or not one thinks literacy is important in a math classroom depends largely upon how literacy is defined.  When many people hear the word literacy, they often first think of reading, and when we think of reading, particularly with respect to learning to read, we often think of reading narratives, especially fictional stories.  Perhaps this is because many people learn to read in school and at home with alphabet and picture books, and then move on to short chapter books.  So our notion of learning to read has become tied to reading stories, even though we may also be learning to read in other ways.  Thus when we hear the word literacy in educational contexts we often conflate it with what teachers and students do in English class.  In this context, if we think that literacy = reading narrative fiction, then we might reasonably conclude that literacy is not too important in math class where students must develop numeracy, computational skills, mathematical reasoning, algorithmic thinking, and so on.

Of course, literacy is actually a pretty broad term and encompasses far more than the reading of stories. In literacy theory and scholarship, there are differing definitions of literacy, but I prefer to use the one we developed for the Disciplinary Literacy Essentials, which was of course informed by prior literacy theory and scholarship. 

This definition states that, 

literacy is framed as a set of socially constructed (developed by people through interaction) practices that use some form of a symbol system to communicate meaning, along with a technology to produce and share it. Therefore, literacy is more than just the skill sets of reading and producing different forms of texts; it also includes the application of these skills “for specific purposes in specific contexts of use” (Scribner & Cole, 1981). Literacy then provides the means to access, process, and communicate information. It is central to all academic disciplines and should thus be included as an important component in disciplinary instruction. 

If we use this definition, it is much easier to understand that literacy is of great importance in math classrooms, especially if we focus in on the particularities of communication and meaning making in math.  I’ll use the example of compound interest, a bit of financial math that everyone should probably understand, to illustrate what I mean.  Wikipedia provides a nice, relatively clear definition of compound interest:

Compound interest is the addition of interest to the principal sum of a loan or deposit, or in other words, interest on interest. It is the result of reinvesting interest, rather than paying it out, so that interest in the next period is then earned on the principal sum plus previously accumulated interest.

Looking for mathematical definitions online to complement this definition, I found the two following representations of the same equation for compound interest:

A = P(1 + r/n)nt

A=final amount

P= initial principal balance

r=interest rate

n= number of times interest applied per time period

t=number of time periods elapsed

and

FV = P(1 + rn)nt

FV =  future value of deposit

P = principal, or amount of money deposited

r = annual interest rate (in decimal form)

n= number of times compounded per year

t = time in years

Although these are the same equations, they use different letters and words to represent the variable of future value/final amount, and they also use different words to describe what each variable in the equation represents.  Key vocabulary terms like deposit, principal, and interest rate get introduced but not explained.  Immediately then we see that words and meaning matter in math. The same value in an equation can be described and represented in different ways, requiring the learner/reader to engage in some level of interpretation.  People with prior knowledge and experience in this area probably wouldn’t even notice the differences in the words.  They recognize the equation and understand the concept of compound interest and can jump right into the problem space.  Novices, however, might get caught up at the interpretive level and not understand what is being represented, and thus not grasp the math that is required. To continue with this example, let’s look at a problem statement related to compound interest

If I deposit $5000 dollars into a savings account that pays 0.7% annual interest that compounds quarterly, how much money will be in the account after 4 years?

This word problem can also be represented with the equation:  FV = 4000(1 + .74)4(5)

So what thinking, reading, and interpretive work would a learner have to do to successfully navigate from the definition to the formula to the word problem to the equation?  Could a learner successfully solve the math problem without understanding the problem context and the concept of compound interest? Yes… this could happen.  Could a learner conceptually understand compound interest but still get the math wrong? Yes… this could happen too.  What it would it take though to understand the context and concept and also get the math right?  Is this sort of mathematical work really just about understanding the numbers and equations, or does the work involve accessing, understanding, and using words, symbols, and numbers together to construct and communicate mathematical meaning?

So let’s return to our initial question… why is literacy important in a math classroom?  I would argue that literacy, in particular the disciplinary literacies of math, are constantly and inevitably already at play in every math classroom.  You simply can’t teach and do math without them.  Students are quite regularly asked to move across words, symbols, and numbers to make and communicate meaning (and this is only one example of a mathematical literacy practice). However, we don’t always make the particular literacy practices of math explicit and visible to students, and our teaching does not always support students to learn these practices. So yes, literacy is incredibly important in math classrooms, and literacy needs to be taught to students by their math teachers, and here we return to the importance of definitions.  What this means is that math teachers should help their students learn, develop, access, and use the many and varied literacy practices particular to mathematics, from reading across word problems and equations, to using context clues in a word problem to make decisions about operations, to constructing mathematical explanations, to creating a graph to represent data, to writing geometric proofs… and more!  Yes, math teachers should teach their students to access and use the language and symbol systems of math.  But I need to close with this important caveat…this is no easy task, and it is much easier said than done! This is the hard, messy work of deep and challenging teaching, so if we want math teachers to engage in this work, then we need to provide them the support, time, professional learning, and resources they need to be successful!  If we don’t, then literacy will not be important in math classrooms simply because we have not collectively given it the importance it deserves.