What is the importance of reading and writing in the mathematics curriculum?
Research and Best Practice Reading, writing, and mathematics are, or should be, inseparable. Hands-on mathematics can stimulate curiosity, engage student interest and build important prior knowledge before students read or write about the topic. The more students know about a topic, the better they comprehend and learn from text on the topic. Prior knowledge is the strongest predictor of student ability to make inferences from text. Hands-on mathematics, though, must be combined with minds-on activities. Reading and writing activities can help students analyze, interpret and communicate mathematical ideas. These are skills needed to evaluate sources of information and the validity of the information itself, a key competency for mathematically literate citizens. Many of the process skills needed for mathematics are similar to reading skills and, when taught together, would reinforce each other. Examples of common skills are predicting, inferring, communicating, comparing and contrasting
