How to Read a Maths Question TOD

Getting students to reread a text is often the first step. Many of our students just do not engage in this strategy. Encouraging students to apply their word attack skills is also a simple yet important step. This means students take their time to look at the context of a word for which they don't know the meaning.
Firstly, students have to ask, what do I already know about the topic. Tuatara, eggs, etc. Next, as they reread the sentence in context, students read what comes before and after the hard or unknown word, e.g. breeding.
Remind students of the mantra, Don't Panic. You're encouraging students to use a variety of reading speeds and strategies as they try to comprehend the question. Our students have these skills, but they tend to give up easily.
Lastly, explain that the structure of a maths question is the opposite of most other paragraphs. The topic comes first, then details are added, but the most important information comes last. These are the instructions, the imperatives, and the interrogatives, such as: calculate, find, how much, etc. Make students aware that being able to find these features in a maths question is an essential life skill as well as an important comprehension skill.
Tell students that comprehension doesn't happen automatically; understanding a text is a task to be undertaken by using comprehension strategies. Completing a maths problem is a goal; comprehending a maths problem is also a goal.
Comprehension is a complex process, make students aware of this aspect of their education.

CAA Study Class US 32405 Write texts to communicate ideas and information

CAA intensive study classes were offered to Yr 11 and Yr12s in preperation for the exam. The focus here was on how to structure an email or an article for a website

Using an Information Transfer to read a CAA Writing Question

Sleep Yr 11 Corequisite Achievement Standard US 32405 Writing

32405 Write texts to communicate ideas and information This is a literacy treatment of a model answer for US32405. The focus here is to show students the language forms students must master in order to write a credible respone to a CAA writing question. The marking rubric is used to give students a pass or fail grade. The rubric covers: Content, Language Choices, Structure and Accuracy. This Functional Grammar approach helps students go beyound the level of the writing frame as a guide.

Building a Bigger Picture

A graphic organiser for reabing Senior Maths problems and a Functional Grammar approach to writing a resonse.

This was a peer teaching exercise with a Maths Teacher and his class. Students were able to navigate the lexical density of the maths questions. They were also made aware of the large number of imperatives and interogertives listed in a typical mathe problem.

The Elephant of Teacher Coaching: Classroom Management and Class Routines

To be mastered above all else.

Cycle of Enquiry 2025

CAA Reading Study Classes Yr 10 and above

The sessions, run after school, will aim to provide students with additional support in developing their comprehension skills. The program will help students develop an awareness of various text types and an understanding of the language used in a variety of texts. I encouraged students to attend and to work directly on improving their comprehension skills.

Students will be given the opportunity to read a wide variety of genres. The aim is to strengthen student text knowledge and to help students develop an internal framework for how texts work. This will centre around text structure, language features, sentence structure and strategies for dealing with unfamiliar words. There will also be an emphasis on tracking cohesion within a text, critical reflection and evaluating ideas and information.

Task 1


The text was projected onto the screen and the scanning and predicting was handed out as a pen and paper exercise. It was necessary to circulate to encourage students to write their informed guess onto the paper.

Task 2

Some students reluctantly to wrote a summary, Some stopped after a sentence. I will endeavour to compare their ability to complete the mulitchoice answers successfully and the quality of their summaries. Their may not be a direct relationship.

Task 3

Some students panicked a little and ticked all the boxes or made it hard to mark their work. Next time, I may ask students to hand in their scripts rather than letting them mark their own work.

A selection of various graphic organisers and information transfers used at Tamaki College

This document was sent to staff in order to inspire the use of or the creation of graphic organisers. This is a quick way to explicitly teach reading/comprehension skills. Students are provided with a goal for reading a text. They are also required to reread the text and to alter their reading speed as they read the text. Often these three skills are weak or they are missing from a students reading routine. In using a graphic organiser we are helping students strengthen those skills.

Graphic Organisers -How to read a Maths Question

This Graphic Organiser works equally well in Science and Technology.


It’s no exaggeration to say that every year, I hear the same complaint from someone in the Maths department. Senior students having completed an external assessment, explain to a teacher how they didn’t do very well in the exam, because although they could do the maths they did not understand the question. Accepting the need to teach reading skills in maths is the first step to improving mathematical outcomes. Text avoidance is a major problem for our students. This method requires students to engage in a reading task instead of waiting for someone to read it to them.


The graphic organiser looks mainly at the language of a maths question. This is a quick way to explicitly teach reading comprehension skills. Students are

-provided with a goal for reading a text

-provided with a method, first look for……..next…..

-required to reread the text

-required to alter their reading speed as they read the text

-able to check how accurately they have comprehended the maths problem

Often these three skills are weak or entirely absent from a student’s reading routine. In using a graphic organiser we are helping students strengthen their comprehension skills.

Using the I Do, We Do, You Do Together and finally You Do, format (as a test) the teacher is monitoring that students are actually completing each grid successfully. When I worked with Ms David and her Year 10s, I asked a number of students to separate when we worked on the final, test yourself, grid.

Asttle Writing and the direct link to the CAA Writing Assessment

I've been asked about the connection between asttle writing and the CAA writing exam. Some of the questions from the 2024 CAA exam paper are almost identical to the questions used in the asttle tests. I've copied here the questions relating to a community facility and council supplied facilities.


The marking rubrics are similar but the asttle is designed to provide a lot more detail for students in terms of strengthes and weaknesses. The CAA rubric is not designed with studentd feedback in mind, its a more pass and fail system. Both offer teachers a way to improve or develop the teaching in order to address the learning needs of thier students.


I'm quoting one of the markers from 2024, who said “In terms of punctuation, as long as they use a capital letter and a full stop, that's a tick.”

Teaching Reading Skills linked to the CAAs i.e reading comprehension skills

Strategic Literacy Plan 2025