Units clarified .... Assumptions ceased

Today in 4th grade I had a couple of pause moments....in terms of linking language to learning....or not.

We are wrapping up an informational narrative piece about the timeline of a wolf pup to adult wolf. The students have enjoyed analyzing a single animal's growth and development.

Today as part of the assessment, I asked them to pick any two development stages and summarize the progress that the wolf demonstrated. (Of course...I asked this in much more simple vocabulary.)

One student had a question that seemed silly at first, and in fact it actually irritated me. As I paused and reflected on the student's question -- I realized a much more serious lack of understanding.

Student A: "Mrs. T, is the stage of 10 days old the same as 10 1/2 months old?"

Now upon hearing the question, I gave the student a puzzled look, "Student, how could 10 days be the same as 10 1/2 months?"

Student A: "I don't know. That's what I don't understand."

What dawned on me at this point is that the student was seeing the numbers and words as separate identities instead of whole units. The student's mind immediately fixated on the numeral 10. Yes, those were nearly the same, minus the 1/2 issue. The student did NOT connect the units, days and months, as the unique labels for the numerals.

Upon realizing the disconnect between units and numbers, I immediately backed down from my irritation and prompted the student to read me the units (words) after the numerals. Were those the same? Which one was longer? So could they be the same stage?

What seems so obvious for us --- is not yet realized for them....how often I catch myself needing this reminder.

Secondly, during a vocabulary sentence review, the class read the word "cattle".

Student B: "What is cattle?"

Now, I guess we can jump all over this and think that students should understand the word cattle by 9-10 years old, but last time I checked our society hasn't been agrarian since the 1800's. Should we expect all students to know this word now? My students have no contact what so ever with farm animals. My students are all from urban environments.

As teachers, we cannot assume that the home has taught students on agrarian life or terminology. Is it fair to assume that it has come up as a part of nightly dinner conversations? Hardly! I do know that my students saw my new phone early this year and said, "Oh, Mrs. T! My mama has an iphone like that!" Oh yes, now technology is a much fairer assumption for dinner table conversation and classroom application.

I'm still waiting for Apple iPods to be used within example sentences in vocabulary curriculum.

I know now it's my duty to insist that my 4th graders do not go on before understanding farm lifestyles this year.