Math and Management of Languange Demands
Students with language-based learning disabilities benefit from strategies to assist in the management of language demands across all subjects. Typically, study skills, the management of time, materials, and language, is a skill set assumed to be reserved for subjects like literature and social science. Language arts and history teachers regularly use interactive notebooks and two-column notes to help structure and support the flow of information, create systems of categorizing concepts, and develop visual representations of key ideas; however, many of these same strategies also are useful in helping students manage language in a math classroom.
Although math is the study of numbers, there is much language inherent in teaching this content area. There are many essential math vocabulary terms that students need to understand and categorize. For example, students need to understand and recognize the relationship between the different types of quadrilaterals in order to be able to cut and build structures. Additionally, there are countless procedures, formulas, and graphic cues that need to be grasped and used correctly for students to be able to solve problems. Math is a subject of patterns and procedures, and to help students organize and categorize math content and information, commonly used study skills strategies can help students make math make sense.
