Literacy strategies helpful to math teachers in instructing content classes. Strategies are helpful to any teachers, but examples used pertain to math.

1. Pre-Reading Strategies
RICA

2. Identify Characters and Setting
Activate Schema
• Garrett and Chelsea • ������Who are the
went to a movie. Tickets characters?
were $4.25 each. • ������What is the setting?
• How much change did • ������Activating the
Garrett receive if he buying/getting change
paid for both tickets schema
with a $10 bill?

3. Identify Main Idea, Implied Main Idea,
Supporting Details
• The main idea of math problem can be thought of as
the skill to solve it.
• Students often need to use the information in the
details (facts)to make an inference.
• Example: Liam is replacing the tiles in his foyer. He is
using 1 square foot tiles. The entry is 6 feet by 6 feet.
How many tiles does he need for the foyer? (area
problem)

4. Make an Inference or Draw a Conclusion
• Math problems often need more than what is
explicitly written.
• Example: Samantha and 3 friends went to Pizza
Palace. They all chose the buffet combo meal for
lunch. Each buffet combo meal is $4.50. How
much did they pay for lunch?
• $13.50? No. There are 4 people!

5. Reading Rate and Metacognition
• Adjust reading rate for your purpose
• Rereading is a good strategy of a good reader
• Think aloud or self talk

6. Adjusting Reading Rate
• Reading is not a race to “The End”!
• Teach adjusting rate explicitly.
• Model, model, model.
• Analogy:
– Tourist
– Detective
– Reviewer

7. DRTA-
Directed Reading-Thinking Activity
• Steps of DRTA
1.Make prediction from title clues.
2.Make predictions from picture clues.
3.Read the material.
4.Assess the accuracy of the predictions. Make
adjustments and continue for longer reading tasks.

8. DRTA-
Directed Reading-Thinking Activity
• Predict from
the title.
• Predict from
the pictures/
graphics.

9. Preview/Survey
• It’s like a picture walk or book walk…
• It activates prior knowledge.
• It helps the reader set the purpose for reading.

10. Without a Preview/Survey

11. With Preview/Survey

12. Reaction Guides
• Teacher creates 3 to 7 statements about the
material, hitting key concepts.
• Students read the statements and respond-
yes/no, true/false, agree/disagree, etc.
• “I don’t know” is not acceptable.
• Students share and discuss.
• Read material. Revisit statements…Prove it

13. Sample Reaction Guide
From Hershey’s Weights and Measures:
__ 1. A mile is more than 12,000 Hershey’s Milk
Chocolate bars with almonds long.
__ 2. An almond weighs about a gram.
__ 3. A miniature candy bar is about an inch each.
__ 4. One Reese’s piece is about a centimeter.

14. Mysterious Possibilities
• Teacher selects “mysterious” item–object, photo,
picture, etc.
• Teacher shares item with class…
• Students are asked to solve the mystery by
brainstorming and predicting the connection
between topic and item.
• Teacher generates list, springboards to lesson.

15. Webbing or Clustering
• Common strategy
What do we know?
What predictions do we have?
What connections can we make?
What questions do we have?
• Also used during and after reading.

16. Story Impressions
• Story Chain • Story Prediction
Pythagoras Pythagoras was a Greek
mathematician who lived in 650
Greek BC. He is credited with
650 discovering the property of right
triangles. The hypotenuse is the
Property longest side of a right triangle;
Right triangles the other two sides are called
legs. What makes his
Hypotenuse Pythagorean Theorem so cool is
Legs the area of a square drawn on the
hypotenuse equals the sum of
Area the area of the two squares
Square drawn on the legs!
Sum

17. Problematic Perspectives
You recently acquired a job with Alaska Air in their
European division. You are excited and ready to
prove your abilities! The first task you are assigned
is to determine the average speed of a new plane
which might be brought into the line. It took 2 ½
hours in its test flight which covered 1280
kilometers. Is its average speed better or worse
than the planes already used which fly 2500
kilometers in 3 hours?
What will you do first? 2nd? 3rd? Later? Why? What
will your report’s conclusion be?

18. Prediction Guide
Directions: Put a check under “Likely” if you believe that the statement has
any mathematical truth. Put a check under “Unlikely” if you believe it has
no mathematical truth. Be ready to explain your choices.
Likely Unlikely
Trigonometry deals with circles.
Angles have little importance in trigonometry.
Sailors use trigonometry in navigation.
Angles can be measured only in degrees.
Calculators are useless in trigonometry.
Trigonometry deals with triangles.
Trigonometry has no application in the real world.
Radians are used in measuring central angles.
Trigonometry has scientific uses.
Radians can be converted to degrees.