In this week’s reading, one quote that stuck out to me was, “To help students understand and learn from the tasks we assign them, we must work with their reading process.” To do this, we must create supportive relationships, model thoughtful reading, promote self-monitoring, use materials that students can successfully read/provide support for more challenging texts, build engagement with the text, and provide books and materials in various formats. A main reason why students struggle with math word problems is due to the fact that they cannot visualize what is going on in the problem, in their head. From the chapter, the students that were trying to solve the problem about shining a laser beam at a reflecting panel, had problems visualizing this because they did not know what a reflecting panel was (just a mirror), or that a beam of light (laser) travels like an object. They could not picture the situation because they were not accustomed to it and could not relate to it. So, how can I, as a future math teacher, avoid this? One, I need to try to incorporate relative material that students can successfully read, in my problems. Since Fortnite has become super popular, giving students a question about Fortnite is something that they can probably almost instantly picture in their heads. An example question would be, “If you are playing Fortnite and you jump off of the roof of a house that is 20 meters tall and fall at a rate of 5 meters per second, how many seconds will it take until you land on the ground?” Second, (and what I think is most important from the list in the beginning), I must model thoughtful reading strategies. I can do this by doing “think-alouds.” If I model to the students how to effectively read the text, then they can incorporate those strategies when they read. Both points are important. I must provide students with material that they can successfully read, that they are familiar with, so that they can visualize and relate to it, and also model how they should use thinking strategies while reading to become more effective readers, by doing “think-alouds.”

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