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Annotated Bibliography
Foster, S. (November 1, 2007). The Day Math and Reading Got Hitched. Teaching Children
Mathematics, 14(4), 196-201.
Foster clearly has a passion for reaching out to teachers with an understanding of the
frustration and burning out that happens when one runs out of strategies to re-teach students
math concepts. By incorporating language arts techniques into teaching math, Foster explains
how students can over come their learning obstacles and how teachers will highly benefit from
incorporating more essential strategies into their teaching methods. Foster discusses how
integrating word problems, building charts, drawing pictures, and highlight key vocabulary are all
strategies that that are engrained into the language arts teaching but will also build successful
math practices. When these strategies were modelled by students, it was shown that students
instantly began to see where mistakes had been made or pieces of the math process had been
missed. Equipping students with cross-curricular strategies also equips them with the
confidence to make mistakes and learn from them. Overall, Foster provides a great insight into
how teachers can gain more success in the teaching process, and how students can gain more
success in learning mathematics when strategies from language arts are adapted and used in
the classroom.
Bell, C.V. (2013). Sharing Beans with Friends. Teaching Children Mathematics, 20(4), 238-244.
This article by Bell demonstrates to its readers the many advantages of integrating
literacy and language arts methods into the mathematics curriculum. Bell describes how the use
of the book Bean Thirteen is used in a mathematics classroom. By using steps and sequential
thinking, encouraging imagination, making real life connections, and encouraging students to
become actively engaged in their learning, Bell argues that the use of literature a math class
offers alternative techniques, especially team work, to solve problems. Working in teams to
solve math problems is encouraged through the use of literature in the classroom and in this
specific example the use of manipulatives is encouraged. Bell shows in her article that students
physical interactions help to create a true sense of understanding the action of dividing beans
and demonstrates an answer as to why there are leftover amounts. By using the book Bean
Thirteen math activities were developed to assist students in working on the math techniques
of counting on, tens and ones, and odd and even numbers. Bell concludes by stating that
students can be provided with meaningful contexts for learning to take place by using literature
and exploring small group work to solve math problems and enhance the learning experience
within a mathematics class.
Parker, R., & Breyfogle, M.L. (2011) Learning to Write About Mathematics. Teaching Children
Mathematics, 18(2), 90-99.

Parker and Breyfogle open up in their article about the issue of children being unable to
properly describe their mathematical processes in written form. In a study, a third grade teacher
attempted to teach students to do this. The teacher built rubrics outlining the process of writing a
mathematical description that will allow the teacher to understand how students reached an
answer to a math problem. The use of the rubrics were completely choice-based but were
considered a necessary form of assistance to students and accurately described what needed
to be done for students to accurately complete the written portion of their thinking process in
math. In the study, the use of the rubric proved to be successful. Parker and Breyfogle provided
two main conclusions in their article which were: 1) that there should be an emphasis on
teachers to teach students how to evaluate the quality of their own work, and 2) that there is an
importance on building and incorporating vocabulary activities in order for students to become
comfortable with the written task at hand. The authors identify that there is an obvious need for
integrating literacy into the math curriculum so that all students are equipped with the skills to
demonstrate their knowledge and abilities across subjects.
Sherrill, C. (2005). Math riddles: Helping children connect words and numbers. Teaching
Children Mathematics, 11(7), 368-375).
Rather than using manipulative math models to solve problems, Sherrill introduces the
method of using riddles. Students are encouraged and challenged to solve mathematical riddles
but also to work in a creative and engaging classroom environment to create their own riddles.
By giving real-world connections to math concepts and providing an outlet for imaginative and
creative thinking, Sherrill provides a great insight into how teachers can stimulate learning
through the use of literacy skills such as story-telling and writing that will develop strategic
thinking skills.
Whitin, P., & Whittin, D. (2006). Making connections through math-related book pairs. Teaching
Children Mathematical, 13(4). 196-202.
Whitin and Whitin demonstrate in their article how literacy and other subject can be
valuably integrated into the math curriculum. By using a variety of story books in the classroom
to promote mathematical relationships students can engage in critical math thinking without
realizing their engagement. When a teacher is consistent and accurate about the types of
questions they pose, students can begin to formulate connections between stories and math
concepts. In this article, Whitin et al., described how students built upon their math thinking by
relating to the stories and creatively applying this thinking to literacy activities such as word
puzzles. By using literature and incorporating it with math teaching, teachers can engage
students to incorporate interests and experiences to make sense of the math concepts and
relationships they are learning!