 Catherine McBae is a grade 5 teacher at the North Middle School campus with foundations for the Future Charter Academy. As Catherine prepares to introduce her students to a new math unit, she begins by highlighting vocabulary students will need to know in order to communicate and understand about what they are learning. We like to start with our vocabulary so that when we come across words, you will be prepared. These are our list of words for today. As Catherine begins her unit on measurement, she invites her students to think about the vocabulary associated with this concept. She takes time at the outset of her instruction to ensure students are fully understanding the language of mathematics. This vocabulary self-awareness strategy allows Catherine to assess the wide range of word understandings her students bring to the content she is teaching. If you think you know something about the word, or maybe you have a really good, educated guess about what it means, I would like you to write that down. Catherine scaffolds her students' learning by first asking them what they already know about the word, then they look to find a definition, and finally they collaborate as a group to create a class definition that makes sense and is easily understood. Her students benefit from these steps and feel more confident when they read the words in their practice work. You have an idea where you want to lead your students with their definition. Of course you want it to be their wording, but you want to make sure that it's accurate and mathematically accurate. I love circulating around and just seeing what the kids are coming up with, looking over shoulders, reading what they've written down. Then I know if our definition isn't going the way that I was hoping it was going to go, I can call on certain students to share their understanding. Being a teacher is sort of like directing a symphony, you need to know who to call on at what time to make sure that everybody ends up with what they need in the end. You guys think, I like that, can we add it in? Let's add it in. A unit to measure the length or width of a small object like a bug. Catherine finds this strategy especially helpful for her English language learners, because not only are they developing mathematical concepts, they are building their mathematical vocabulary to help deepen their understanding. We do our own definition at the end, our textbook definition. We do it as a class so that everybody understands what it means. If the definition in the textbook is way too complicated. If we ever do a question and we come across that word, for example, if we come across referent, we would remember what referent is from our class definition because, again, it made sense to us in case the textbook didn't make sense. I would also say that it's important to get everyone in your class participating. Everyone has something to share. I like to do hair share, and so they get to talk with their partner about what their definition is, and if they're not confident to share their own definition, they can share what their partner had to say. Giving everyone a voice in the classroom makes them have ownership over the class definition that we come to in the end. With ongoing practice, the students' confidence grows and their understanding deepens. I get most of the questions in my homework correct, and I feel pretty confident when I'm doing the work. If you really don't study the words like a mathematician thinks of, then you don't get math. Many educators share the misconception that because math uses symbols, it's not associated with language or culture. On the contrary, language plays an important role in learning mathematics. We use language to explain mathematical concepts and carry out mathematical procedures. It's kind of struck me because I think sometimes we forget that and we just think that it's formulas and plugging numbers in, but in order to understand math, you have to think math. I just noticed that now their responses are more mathematical. When they're describing something to me, they're not going to say that it's a shape. They're going to say it's a three-sided shape. They're going to tell me what the properties of the shape are using proper math language. This transference really shows me that they understand things. Their results on their summative assessments are really good, and even when we're doing formative assessment or they're just practicing on daily work, I see them going into glossaries more frequently, looking up words they don't understand, going back to their math vocabulary sheet to figure out what the question is asking them.