Lessons and Activities for Building Powerful Numeracy

Book excerpt: Building Powerful Numeracy for Middle and High School Students brought the world of research on numeracy at the elementary level to the secondary level, helping teachers build numeracy in their students and showing how that work supports students in understanding higher math. Now, Pam Harris continues her work by offering lessons and activities that promote her strategies for teaching as much mathematics as possible with as little memorization as possible. Two types of activities for building numeracy are included in this workbook: Student Workouts include reproducible worksheets that students can work on independently or in pairs, followed by robust class discussion to promote understanding of the ideas. Teacher Directed Activities are whole-class mini-lessons designed to help students construct numerical relationships as they work with the teacher. While the student workouts provide starting points for students to build important numerical relationships and choose effective strategies, the teacher directed activities provide opportunities for discussing, comparing, modeling, verbalizing strategies, finding and describing patterns, and making generalizations. Together they help develop the mathematical habits of mind that students need for higher math.