19.6: Cross-curricular teaching practices

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Students use many of the same skills and strategies in mathematics as they do in English language arts. Making explicit connections between strategies across content areas strengthens students’ cognitive processes. To make these connections, educators should point out when a vocabulary word, skill, or strategy has a dual purpose across content areas and model these connections during instruction. One way to model cross-curricular connections is to be intentional when selecting read-alouds. For example, strategies used to make sense of complex language in a mathematical word problem are similar to the strategies used when reading informational text. Activating background knowledge supports student reading comprehension and mathematical reasoning. Students may activate background knowledge about a topic within a mathematical task the same way they would activate background knowledge while reading text. Learning explicit and systematic strategies for receiving and providing feedback benefits students across content areas. For example, providing feedback to justify a strategy used for solving a mathematical problem is similar to providing peer feedback for revisions during writing.