Math Vocabulary and Pre-Service Teachers: A Literature Review

Introduction

The nation's public and private school systems have demonstrated far too many examples where large numbers of students fail to excel. Unfortunately, mathematics education has become one of the more obvious shortcomings of the educational system. As Elliott (p. 11) observes, "Mathematics education seems particularly prone to the belief in the single new idea: do this (whether using calculators, teaching mathematics through problem solving, working collaboratively, stressing the basics, employing manipulatives, and so on), and all your math problems will be solved." Obviously, this is not the case.

This literature review focuses on the fact that modern-day students consistently demonstrate a lack of overall proficiency, especially in areas like mathematically-based vocabulary. But is it the student's fault? A 2006 article in Reading Psychology by Margaret-Mary Sulentic-Dowell, Gloria D. Beal, and Robert M. Capraro, titled "How Do Literacy Experiences Affect the Teaching Propensities of Elementary Pre-Service Teachers?", addresses how pre-service and early-grade teachers may in fact be a crucial part of how students develop both reading and mathematics skills.

The Problem: Student Math Vocabulary Deficits

There is little doubt that students today have been falling further and further behind the rest of the world mathematically. This study aimed to show that basic communication skills may actually be the underlying problem. As Elliott (p. 1) argues, "First and foremost, if we want to fulfill the social goals of a mathematically literate workforce, lifelong learning, opportunities for all, and an informed electorate, then we all will need to communicate mathematically."

There is a clear lack of proficiency in many students' basic math vocabulary knowledge. It is not difficult to picture a classroom full of children in a typical elementary school somewhere in the United States. The children are working on a math assignment that requires solving several pre-algebraic word problems. A few of the children have no difficulty whatsoever; however, the majority are either partly or completely lost. They do not understand the instructions, the problems themselves, or key parts of the problems for one reason or another. Teachers often face these dilemmas and become frustrated.

At what point did the majority of students miss the foundation of mathematically-based vocabulary? According to the article, elementary pre-service teachers who are lifelong active readers may exert a more positive influence on students' ability to acquire vocabulary skills, particularly in challenging areas such as math. Teachers who maintain an active reading lifestyle tend to teach differently than those who were not regular readers. As Sulentic-Dowell et al. explain:

"Active readers use comprehension strategies most often to help students decide on a solution strategy. The most common types of comprehension strategies were to ask students to rephrase the problem or to re-read the problem aloud. It was common to hear an active reader, when faced with a student having difficulty with a word problem, ask the student to re-read a sentence and then explain what it means. This process helped students understand the problem structure and to decode the English and re-encode it into a mathematics register. When students continued having difficulty with whole-sentence meaning, active readers often used a chunking strategy. They would ask students to read a particular part of a sentence and then explain what it means." (Sulentic-Dowell, Beal, and Capraro)

Goal: Focusing on Pre-Service and Early-Grade Teachers

In order to increase students' skills related to mathematical vocabulary, it is more important to focus on the pre-service and preschool teachers to whom these students are exposed in their early academic careers. As Trentacosta (p. 145) notes, "Mathematics projects are developed from real-world needs of both the middle school students and the preschoolers. Assessment is integral to curriculum."

Pre-service and preschool teachers provide unique skill sets to their students — skills that children carry with them throughout their academic lives. There are specific competencies these teachers should possess, because their instructional habits translate directly into more capable math students. Research on teacher literacy practices has highlighted three key themes emerging from classroom observations of study participants over time: first, those who claimed to read regularly actively engaged students in comprehension strategies during mathematics instruction; second, active readers were more likely to check vocabulary understanding; and third, non-active readers were more likely to rely on keyword strategies for solving word problems or to match specific vocabulary to certain arithmetic operations (Sulentic-Dowell, Beal, and Capraro).

Conclusion

The logic of using these types of data-gathering and documentation methods provided a way for the authors to triangulate the process of verifying, validating, and disconfirming the retrieved information. Together, these methods strengthen the study's claims that teacher literacy habits have a measurable impact on students' mathematical vocabulary development. While the study's scale limits broad generalization, its findings offer a compelling starting point for larger investigations into how foundational reading practices among educators can shape long-term student outcomes in mathematics.