Math Talk Anchor Charts

Take a moment to add 19 + 17 in your head.

Hopefully, you got the correct sum of 33. But even if you messed up, there’s not that much math in a one-off answer like that. To really dig into the math, a follow-up question is needed. Something like, can you explain how you found the sum?

Perhaps you first added 9 and 7, then added the two 10s. Or perhaps you changed 19 to 20, remembering to subtract 1 at the end. One correct answer suddenly balloons into many possibilities with opportunities for clarification and disagreement. It is in this kind of talk about math that strategies and larger mathematical ideas emerge.

What is math talk?

Math talk, sometimes also called math conversations or math discourse, refers to students talking about math in the classroom. It’s an important part of how students learn math more deeply and grow in their mathematical confidence.

Teachers can help to facilitate effective math talk using scaffolds and strategies that help make it meaningful. For example, math sentence starters and frames are one type of language scaffold. These are partial sentences that can support not only multilingual learners who are still working to communicate effectively in English but also, more generally, any learner who needs help articulating math-related ideas.

Talk moves, which are questions designed to give all students an opportunity to talk about math at a high level, are a useful way to ensure that students discuss math purposefully. The goal is to avoid always asking low-level questions to some students or turning to the same students every time with math questions.

The importance of math talk

Math talk is more than just the conversation that happens during math class. It is an essential part of learning math. It is important to practice performing arithmetic and solving equations, but the full extent of doing math involves all of the standards of mathematical practice, such as attending to precision and persevering when solving problems. Talking about math connects arithmetic, equations, and all the ideas that come up in math class to the way we communicate and ensures that are arguments are logical and conclusions reasonable.

By talking about math, students grow in skills other than math, too. They strengthen their communication skills and build language skills across all areas of language: reading, writing, speaking, and listening. Growth in communication and language lends itself especially well to the mathematical practice of constructing viable arguments and critiquing the reasoning of others. Mathematically proficient students should be able to “justify their conclusions, communicate them to others, and respond to the arguments of others.” Anchor charts can be an important tool to support conversations about math content and to engage more generally in mathematical practice standards.

What are anchor charts?

Anchor charts are large, visual references that students can use to direct (or anchor, if you will) their thinking. They’re often created in this way: The teacher sets up a blank chart visible to the class (it could be a word web, Venn diagram, or any kind of graphic organizer), fills it out with the students helping, and then does a relevant activity.

When students develop anchor charts with the teacher, it helps them not only be invested in making the chart but also better understand its content. Students can even have their own mini anchor charts as part of a math notebook to reference outside of school, for example with peers or family members.

Anchor charts can also refer more generally to any public chart or organizer, often a large poster, that is displayed in the classroom to help students through a lesson or activity, even if the students weren’t involved in creating it. In math class, this might look like a poster with visual models, vocabulary terms, lists of properties, or guided sentence starters.

Students will see the chart repeatedly and throughout many classroom conversations, potentially even offering a way to increase student confidence. The chart gives students a tool for seeking help independently, serving as a visual support that might offer a hint before students need to go to the teacher. Plus, their utility as a reference image can long outlast the activity and potentially help spark students’ memories of the topic that was being taught long after the initial lesson is over.

What are math talk anchor charts?

Math talk anchor charts refer to anchor charts that are designed to facilitate math talk in the classroom. They often have sentence starters and frames to help with the different ways that mathematical ideas and solutions can be responded to. They lump together different kinds of math talk into categories like the ones below:

• Explaining reasoning (“My first step was _____.”)
• Agreeing with someone (“I agree with _____ because _____.”)
• Disagreeing with someone (“I disagree with _____ because _____.”)
• Evaluating a response (“Another solution could be _____.”)
• Extending the conversation (“Why did you _____?”)
• Clarifying a response (“Can you explain why _____?”)

Anchor charts to support math talk

All anchor charts can support math talk, however, depending on how they’re used. Even anchor charts not specifically dedicated to math talk can be helpful in facilitating math talk in the classroom. For instance, an anchor chart can offer questions that the teacher or other students can ask to help elicit mathematical thinking.

Go Math offers a variety of anchor charts with questions and sentence frames that are connected to the eight standards for mathematical practice. These anchor charts, provided in full below, have a variety of questions that teachers (and in many cases, students) can ask, organized by practice standard. 

These anchor charts can be used as-is, or they can serve as a guide for collaboratively creating share understandings of different content standards or standards for mathematical practice. Practice 3, constructing viable arguments and critiquing the reasoning of others, is especially useful for evaluating how deep students’ understandings are on a given topic. These anchor charts help students incorporate the math practice standards into their conversations while also strengthening their overall language skills. Here are the questions provided for practice 3:

• What does your answer mean? This question can come from a student or a teacher and explains a problem’s larger context, looking deeper than just giving an answer.
• How can you repeat that in your own words? Have students try to clarify what the teacher or another student just said in order to help understand the meaning of what someone said.
• Do you AGREE or DISAGREE with what they said? Why? Debate can be useful in any subject. Math is not always black and white, after all. Encourage students to speak up if they disagree on a solution, and have them explain why they disagree, too.
• Explain how you know when an answer is NOT correct. Assessing reasonableness is an important skill. Sometimes we can quickly ascertain details about an answer, for example its units or an approximate value, without having to rigorously calculate it.
• How can you explain your answer using paper and pencil? This question could also be adapted to technology, for example, “How can you draw your answer on your tablet?” The idea is to get students accompanying math talk with models that visualize what they’re saying.
• A question I can ask to understand how the problem was solved is _____. This sentence starter directs the math talk from between teacher and student to among students. Once a student can come up with a clarifying question, can another student answer it?

Why are math talk anchor charts useful?

In John Hattie’s 2023 meta-analyses synthesis of what educational influences visibly improve learning, classroom discourse has an effect size of 0.82, far beyond an the average effect size of 0.42. Discussing math will come easier to some students more than others, however. A student who is still learning English, for example, will likely have a harder time discussing math in English. Anchor charts are a powerful tool to help level the playing field. All students (plus the teacher!) can reference them to create a common language and turn mathematical ideas into mathematical discourse.

Having anchor charts can even add a feeling of comfort to the classroom. The charts can help students if they feel stuck and serve as a visual reminder that they are in a familiar place. “What does a kid see when they walk in the door, and what makes them know that they’re safe?” asks longtime interventionist Jennie Mau. “I have anchor charts all over this room and so they can see exactly what it is that we’re doing and what learning is going on and what to expect.”

Math talk anchor charts are more than classroom decorations. They can elicit deeper thinking and more confident communication. By offering structured prompts and visual cues, you can help every student find their voice in math.

***

Encourage math talk and make math count for all students with HMH’s math solutions, spanning all grades and tiers of instruction.