When writing my book was in its infancy, I thought I was a genius. I was certain the reason why students struggled with word problems was mostly because we were not assessing their mathematical ability but rather their reading ability. Because mathematicians create word problems, they were probably not thinking about the difficulty of the language. That was my assumption.
I decided to prove my genius by a sampling of data. I am glad it humbled me.
For my sample data, I typed every word of my state's math assessment (by grade), minus directions, into a spreadsheet. Then I created a pivot table to record frequency. It looked something like this:
I decided to prove my genius by a sampling of data. I am glad it humbled me.
For my sample data, I typed every word of my state's math assessment (by grade), minus directions, into a spreadsheet. Then I created a pivot table to record frequency. It looked something like this:
Column A is the word, Column B is how often the word appeared, and this new column, Column C, is where that word occurs in Fry's list of the 1,000 most commonly read words.
Because I was so sure the math test was composed of uncommonly used words, I was surprised to find it not so. In grade 3, for example (as shown in my book), 62% of the test contained these commonly read words. Of the 38% that didn't, only 4.5% of those words were mathematics-specific. Even though my assumption was wrong, there was a lot to contemplate.
I did not include data for secondary in my book, but I will include it here. The images below are from Texas' 2022 released STAAR Math assessment. I want to emphasize that in my book, I triple-checked my work. The data I am sharing here I only entered once. Although still a draft, it is a useful discussion piece.
Because I was so sure the math test was composed of uncommonly used words, I was surprised to find it not so. In grade 3, for example (as shown in my book), 62% of the test contained these commonly read words. Of the 38% that didn't, only 4.5% of those words were mathematics-specific. Even though my assumption was wrong, there was a lot to contemplate.
I did not include data for secondary in my book, but I will include it here. The images below are from Texas' 2022 released STAAR Math assessment. I want to emphasize that in my book, I triple-checked my work. The data I am sharing here I only entered once. Although still a draft, it is a useful discussion piece.
