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Our public schools have, in the last 10 years or so, worked to increase literacy by implementing reading programs for both accelerated and struggling readers. There is plenty of time and energy spent every day in classrooms encouraging reading and writing.

I would love to see this same effort put into mathematical literacy.  An important aspect of understanding math, from my experinece,  is understanding that it is a language. 

I am a TA for a physics class at WSU Vancouver.  I am regularly surprised at how difficult it is for students to translate physical phenomena into mathematical expressions. I have also noticed a distinct lack of the ability for students to follow a simple derivation. 

I think that increasing mathematical literacy would strengthen students' ability to understand simple proofs and derivations which are a huge part of science and math texts at the college level.

posted 2 years, 6 months ago
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