Talking and Writing About Math? OG Math Students Know How!

Explaining mathematical ideas requires careful thought and attention. So, some people might say that’s asking a lot from students who struggle with math. 

That’s not the case! Talking about math as it is practiced is a key idea in OG Academic Math.

OG Academic Math or Orton-Gillingham Math, is taught in increments. Each new idea builds on the one taught before it. That’s why OG Math is known as a cumulative approach. Each math concept is introduced using a multisensory, VAKT approach. Expressing ideas as they are practiced is part of the OG Math “Say it and Do it” technique. Mathematical ideas which are reviewed and explained clearly and carefully are more likely to be correct.

The process of talking about math and sometimes writing good mathematical explanations will improve your students’ knowledge and understanding.

So, you are likely wondering, what does good mathematical writing look like?

To begin with, it is more than just to being able to write down a final “answer”.

As your students learn more math, being able to express mathematical ideas will become more important. So, you should not confuse writing mathematics with students “showing their work”. Rather, they will be explaining and demonstrating how well you taught them to understand mathematical concepts.

A list of calculations without any context or explanation demonstrates that your students spent some time doing computations; however, a list of calculations without any explanations omits ideas. The ideas are the mathematics. Let’s make sure to talk about them. 

Writing 

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Students are usually already familiar with writing sentences in other subjects at school. They can follow many of the same guidelines while writing an explanation for a math concept.  Good writing observes the rules of grammar. This applies to writing in mathematics as well.

Students learn that word problems require a solution sentence as in the following example:

“Amy has 8 books. She gave 2 books to the library.

How many books does Amy have left?”

The calculation for this word problem would be 8 – 2 = 6

The solution sentence for it would be,

“Amy has 6 books left.”

On the other hand, the student could provide the following verbal explanation.

 “I need to find the difference between 8 and 2, so I need to think 8 minus 2.

 It equals 6. So, Amy still has 6 books left.”

The explanation demonstrates an understanding of the subtraction process

that is required to solve the word problem.

Here are a few more examples of math explanations which may be expressed verbally,

in written form or both.

Question 1.  

How can you check if this problem is correct?

13 – 4 = 9

Explanation: Add the difference (or answer), which is 9, to the number 4.

The sum should equal the top number 13.

Question 2.

Write the rule for this sequence; 4, 8, 12, 16, ____, ____, ____, …

Explanation: The rule is to “count up” (or skip count) by fours.

The answers are 20, 24, 28.

Question 3.

All the books on the table were put into 2 equal piles. Was the number of books in each pile

an odd number or even number? How do you know?

Explanation:

Equal means the same. If both piles are the same, it can’t be odd because an odd

number would have one extra book left over.

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When your students are taught the underlying structure of math language and

word problems as well as having an opportunity to talk about math ideas

they are on their way to achieving confidence and math success.  

About OG Academic Math 

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. 

Learn more about OG Math right here