How do you teach students in grades K-2 on how to explain their work? I give my students sentence stems with the words first, next, then, and last. I also teach sequencing to help keep my students organized.
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Our teachers do similar things… paragraph frames etc as well!
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This is a slightly different approach, but I am a math facilitator so I think about this a lot.
I have found younger students struggle with understanding “how” vs. “why”. “How” being how did you solve the problem and “why” being the justification.
I teach our students and teachers to use a context very familiar to students in a mini- lesson. For example, HOW do you make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich vs. WHY. you might make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Another example is WHY do you need to call a fireman/ police vs. HOW you contact the fire and police.
Having a context for students to hold onto makes understanding and practicing how and why writing in math.
We practice RAP, restate, answer, prove. It gets the students used to doing this every time they answer this type of question.
I feel that modeling is a first step to get students to understand this concept. As the year progresses, the students are encouraged to talk to a partner about the question giving support from a text and details making connections. It has helped my students tremendously with their communication skills and providing in depth answers to the questions. Their reasoning really begins to grow with time.
