Reading Maths

Published: February 11th, 2025

My last blog was all about Reading, and my latest educational book, ‘Becoming a Reader’ explores this fascinating set of skills at its many levels. A recent home tutoring session reminded me how much reading there actually is in the subject of maths: and why many children, especially with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) struggle to solve complex problems with their multiple parts. Much of maths involves splitting a problem into components, in order to arrive at the answer. Consider this example:

Mandy has 40 sweets. She gives 2/5 to Tom, and 3/10 to Eva. How many sweets does Mandy keep for herself? 

In which order does this problem need to be solved? A boy I currently tutor, diagnosed with Moderate Learning Difficulties (MLD), often struggles to recognise different parts of a problem and place them into the correct order – so we jotted down the component parts:

  1. Finding Tom’s 2/5 – as 1/5 (8) x 2 = 16
  2. Finding Eva’s 3/10 – as 1/10 (4) x 3 = 12
  3. Adding Tom’s and Eva’s sweets together = 28
  4. Subtracting this answer from the total of 40 – so Mandy keeps 12 for herself. 

Jotting down the parts, with answers, helped this young person to organise his thoughts and support memory as we worked through the problem, avoiding confusion. 

The reading for this particular problem involves firstly recognising the details in each of the three short sentences: ie. the fractions as key information, and the final sentence as the required answer.  The reader also needs to work out the sequence for solving the problem: in which order are the four parts to be worked out? Jotting these down helped my learner to think this through and remember where he had reached in his sequence.

Whilst mathematical problems give readers crucial information, they do not inform them what to do with that information, and how to use it. So, for our example, my learner had to comprehend at inferential level: find each fractional amount, add them together, then subtract this from the total number of Mandy’s sweets, in order to arrive at the required answer.

Compared to some mathematical problems, this example is reasonably simple, with far less depth of comprehension to be ‘deep dived’ into. The comprehension of reading is often a struggle for  children diagnosed with MLD or other aspects of SEND, even if they manage to read the words accurately. Breaking down key information into its component parts and jotting down the order in which to apply them, will help all learners to comprehend mathematical problems more effectively. And this is my message to all maths teachers: that mathematical achievement would be greatly enhanced if more attention was directed to the reading comprehension connected to the problem. So, whilst the computation itself is a crucial element, solving mathematical problems is as much about the reading as about the sums. 

My book, ‘Becoming a Reader’ delves deeply into comprehension, and is aimed at all adults responsible for teaching/supporting reading in schools and colleges. 

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