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• Value mathematics
• Communicate mathematically
• Become confident and strategic problem solvers

• Express the value of math every chance you get—managing money, estimating times to leave or get up, receiving change at a store, higher math is correlated to higher education and, therefore, higher wages, etc.
  
• Research shows that effort is the key to math achievement, not the “math gene”. However, some parents who did not feel successful in math pass on to their children that it is okay not to be good at math. Encourage parents to value math and support their children in order to help them become successful in math.
• Allow students to TALK and WRITE daily about math in partners, small groups, and whole groups. There are numerous benefits to this including deeper understanding of math concepts and the ability to use and communicate them.
• Use open-ended and open-response questions daily to differentiate and allow each student to feel successful and therefore engage. This is the beginning of the “success, engage, learn, success” cycle.
• Teach problem solving strategies that are included in the math text. Supplement these strategies with the pictorial “model drawing” as an approach to solving many word problems. Provide time for practicing problem solving on a daily basis (one problem).
• Vocabulary development is crucial in math because math has its own meanings for many commonly used words and many words that aren’t used outside of math. Connect students’ informal language to correct mathematical terms informally without making an issue of it. Introduce new concepts before the new word so students have something to connect the word to.
• Math facts are to math what sight words are to reading. A good resource that is working for a couple of our schools is Mad Minute Math. Another is Fastt Math which is a computer program that the district owns. Daily practice and charted growth can help students stay motivated and greatly improve fluency. Consider practicing math fluency outside of your 60-minute math block and encouraging parents to provide practice time at home.