Common Core Math Vocabulary

I tell my students that I teach them reading all day long, they just don’t know it! We teach them during our reading block, sure, but that instruction continues all day long by introducing vocabulary and teaching strategies in content areas too. 

Recently, our team reviewed our Little Darlins’ test scores on the third grade MEAP test. We sat around saying, “But we taught that…they knew that well…” Does that sound familiar? After analyzing the released test items, we decided that the reason for some poor performance on specific items was that the students were confused by or had trouble reading certain math vocabulary terms. They made reading mistakes on a math test! How often do we see that happen?

Well, that got us going to create a plan to help remedy this. My team will be displaying and teaching math vocab with a math-only word wall. I made this for our rooms with cute graphics for our owl mascot theme. 

During each unit, we will teach students to read these words well and understand the meaning of each of them as we go through the Common Core Standards. What if the kiddos are asked to partition something on an assessment? We just won’t know. No problem, we’ve taught that word!

Since this is a transition year, the students will need to have a handle on all of the words from our grade level content expectations too. I researched many reliable sources and compiled a massive list (over 150) of words specific to second grade. 

I’m excited because my students are doing a lot of writing to explain their thinking in math and now they will have a word bank to use to help them!