The Importance of Connecting Literacy with Math in the Classroom

By Emily Mumbauer, XtraMath

As we enter the month of March, National Reading Awareness Month is being spotlighted in many classrooms across the nation. This month-long event is a reminder that reading is an adventure for all ages.

In connection with Reading Awareness Month, XtraMath spotlights how reading is an integral part of making real-life connections with math in the classroom. As a former teacher, I want to share my experience with math and literacy in the classroom, the importance of having a robust classroom library, and math literature that can be used in your daily everyday math lessons.

My Experience with Math and Literacy

After teaching for 11 years in elementary education, I recently joined XtraMath as the new Curriculum and Instructional Designer for XtraMath. When I was in school, I do not remember my teachers reading children’s literature during any type of math lesson.

As a youngster, I was not a fan of math. I remember just opening my math book and completing problem after problem in a journal or a consumable math book. I remember reading story problems, but nothing that excited me. I was always asking the question to my teacher, “What happened next in the story problem?”

Growing up, I was an avid reader. I loved to get lost in a book and imagine myself that I was the main character going off on a far-off adventure just like Spiderman. Today, our math story problems lack adventure and are often boring to read. The math story problems that we give our students lack the engaging details that hook a reader to continue reading a story.

Once I became an educator in the classroom, I realized I could bring the excitement of reading into math for my students as well as foster my love for this universal subject. It all started for the first time I read the book “Pizza Pizzazz” by Carol A. Losi to my first graders to introduce fractions. As I was reading the book, I could see little lightbulbs were lighting up and going off in my students’ heads. I saw one hand shoot up and then another and then another. I called on each student, and they kept saying that you could see fractions at home when you order pizza, or when we eat cupcakes, or when we eat cookies.

This gave me an idea to say, “Yes, that’s great thinking! We should order a pizza on Friday to demonstrate different fractions.” My students were overjoyed. Then, I asked them, “What other fractions can we see in real life?” We made a fraction anchor chart with cupcakes showing ½ and cookies showing ¼, and so on. It is amazing how one piece of math children’s literature can spark connections to real-life applications in our daily life.

A Robust Classroom Library

Bringing me to my next topic, having a robust classroom library with a variety of read-alouds is paramount for fostering literacy in the classroom. According to the Scholastic 2019 Kids and Family Reading Report, classroom libraries are critically important. Kids who have robust classroom libraries are more likely to be frequent readers:

• Among 6–8-year-olds, 60% of kids with a robust classroom library are frequent readers, compared to 51% of kids without a robust classroom library.
• Among 9–11-year-olds, this split is 40% vs. 31% and among 12–14-year-olds, the gap narrows to 26% vs. 23%.
• Among 15–17-year-olds, the gap widens once again with 17% of kids with a robust classroom library being frequent readers, compared to only 10% of kids without a robust classroom library.

Additionally, while 70% of school-aged children say they have a school library, only 56% say the school library has enough of the books they want to read. It is important to have a reading interest inventory for your students so you can add books to your classroom library that interest them the most. It was always interesting to see the different reading interests from year to year. I found that after I read a math read-aloud in my classroom and put them on display, my students would be eager to read them during their independent reading time.

My Favorite Math Read-Alouds

As I close out my post, I wanted to leave you with my favorite math read-alouds for the classroom below. Also, I am interested in seeing what kind of math read-alouds you use in your classroom as well. You can add your favorite math read-aloud(s) in the comments below. I look forward to seeing this master list of read-alouds grow so that everyone can use it for their math classroom. I hope everyone has a fun-filled National Reading Month of March!

Top 10 Math Read Alouds Used in My Classroom

Math Read Aloud

Math Concept

1. Pizza Pizzazz by Carol A. Losi

Fractions

2. Give Me Half! by Stuart J. Murphy

Fractions

3. It’s About Time by Stuart J. Murphy

Telling Time

4. Divide and Ride by Stuart J. Murphy

Introduction to Division

5. Grapes of Math by Greg Tang

Problem Solving Strategies

6. The Math Curse by Lane Smith and Jon Scieszka

Problem Solving Strategies

7. Knots on a Counting Rope by John Archambault

Problem Solving/Algebra

8. Equal Shmequal by Virginia Kroll

Balance/Algebraic Equations

9. Holes by Louis Sachar

Ratio/Data Collection/Percents

10. The Shape of Things by Dayle Ann Dodds

Geometry