Karen Tzanetopoulos, CCC-SLP: No financial or non-financial relationships to disclose
Abstract: There is no way to communicate about math without language, yet the English language of math is phonologically and morphologically complex and is filled with abstract vocabulary. From the earliest grades, math is taught and assessed through story problems that require language comprehension, memory, reasoning, and attention. While many language impaired and English language learner students have the potential to excel in math, they often struggle because of the focus on language without corresponding explicit instruction of mathematical concepts and meaning. This presentation will give an overview of ways to incorporate language instruction as a part of math learning and include strategies based in the latest cognitive research to build the necessary foundations of math so that these students have a chance to learn math.
Summary of Presentation : The purpose of this presentation is to provide practitioners with tools to incorporate language intervention along with concrete strategies based on the latest math cognition research to help language impaired and English language learning students to learn math more easily and successfully. Many of these students struggle to learn math because math instruction today is so heavily language based, putting them at a particular disadvantage. Furthermore, the English language of math is complex and abstract, adding to the challenge for these students.
This presentation will provide strategies to improve learning English math language, including phonology, morphology, vocabulary, syntax, and story problem comprehension. These strategies will help children learn counting, arithmetic and the foundations of math, and is appropriate for pre-school through 6th grade practitioners.
The presenter recently co-authored the book How Children Learn Math: The Science of Math Learning in Research and Practice (2023) (being released in the fall of 2022), written for instructors and parents. Their reference list includes over 1,700 citations with articles published as recently as 2022. Karen Tzanetopoulos, presenter, is a speech and language pathologist who has put her expertise in language and math cognition into practice while working with many students in her private practice.
Learning Objectives:
At the completion of this activity, participants should be able to:
1) Describe how language and reading skills impact learning math
List ways to incorporate language remediation in learning math
Demonstrate strategies for comprehending math story problems