Al Purdy, Canadian Poet
Say the Names is my favourite poem. I love words and poems, so it resonates for me in many ways. The names in the poem are unusual and even a bit wacky to the unfamiliar ear.
If you’re curious about it and want to listen to it, a young woman named Sophia Chu recites it here.
Some words in the poem are like these: Tulameen, Spillamacheen and Nahanni, Kleena Kleene and Horsefly, and Illecillewaet. But they aren’t strange to me at all. They are words infused with meaning, images and memories.
When I see the word Spillamacheen, I can imagine tall western red cedar and hemlock trees, and I can smell the clean crisp air of the Columbia Valley in Northern British Columbia. When I think of Tulameen, I can feel the wind blowing off the mountains as the sparkling Tulameen River races by me.
What does this have to do with Orton Gillingham and Math? Well it might seem like a stretch to some of you, but for me it illustrates how difficult it is for many students who struggle with math to understand abstract vocabulary and ideas without having something concrete to connect their experiences to and cement them. The poem came to mind as I contemplated an answer to a frequently asked question about OG Academic Math; how do we manage math vocabulary in a multisensory, structured OG Math approach?
To understand and apply a math concept, students need to be able to not just read and recognize the word that represents the idea, but also to understand and apply the math concept that a specific word represents or names. Otherwise it is a math term without meaning.
That sounds very straight forward at first glance and most of us would read that statement and say, “Well of course a word is connected to meaning!” But the issue those of us who teach struggling math students face, is that cementing the meaning of math words and concepts is not as easy as it first appears. I was reminded about the complexity of words and their meanings at a conference recently.
Marcia Mann was the sole presenter at a Canadian Academy Orton Gillingham Conference I attended on April 28th in Vancouver. The title of her presentation was THE RULES OF THE ROAD: A journey from discourse to writing, and everything in between.
Marcia P. Mann MA, CCC is a Founding Fellow of the Academy of Orton-Gillingham Practitioners and Educators (USA) and a tireless advocate for those who struggle with dyslexia and who benefit from Orton Gillingham Literacy Instruction. These students struggle with reading, spelling and writing.
It’s not as commonly recognized that many also have difficulty with Math. Throughout the presentation Marcia stressed that there is an intimate relationship between language and thinking that includes math language and thinking about math ideas.
One of the challenges I faced when I was developing the OG Academic Math Approach was how to connect the words to a math approach that relied heavily on seeing , saying and using movement, to cement math ideas and instill retention of the words and concepts.
Looking back now, the link seems natural because we’ve been able to build connections into the OG Academic Math Approach using the Orton Gillingham foundations of multisensory, structured instruction; plan, teach using VAKT methods (simultaneous visual, auditory kinesthetic, and tactile). It’s combined with review and practice which is integrated into each lesson plan. Students and teachers know this as, “Say it and Do it.
If you want to learn more and view a free introductory course on the ideas that support OG Academic Math
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Marilyn Wardrop is a gifted trainer & mentor who helps educators replace or surpass their current math teaching strategies for struggling math students or those children learning math for the first time.
Marilyn’s OG Academic Math training programs have been called the secret weapon of frustrated math instructors. Thousands of educators use OG Math every single day.
Contact Marilyn here anytime.
Marilyn Wardrop is a gifted trainer & mentor who helps educators replace or surpass their current math teaching strategies for struggling math students or those children learning math for the first time. Marilyn’s OG Academic Math training programs have been called the secret weapon of frustrated math instructors. Thousands of educators use OG Math every single day.
[…] at a conference with Marcia Mann, I was reminded once again about how language develops, where struggling students face […]
