Math Tub: Funny name

I don't totally remember what the inspiration for the name of this blog was. I do know that I went through a period when I wanted to explore and share my thoughts on my own education and how math made me feel.  I was not a math genius, I was not terribly competent, I often had a panic attack when looking at numbers. Not good.

However, I always liked words and my favorite part of school was learning about words, how to spell them, what makes them up, and what the roots and key stories behind words are.

I love the blog of the Mayor of VocabularySpellingCity.  I have learned from the blog that it's important to focus on word study.  And word lists for review are so productive.  Here's some lists that we recommend:

• 2nd Grade Spelling Word Lists
• 3rd Grade Spelling Word Lists
• 4th Grade Spelling Word Lists
• 5th Grade Spelling Word List 
• The techniques for studying words in literacy centers are now understood differently. The big new idea is to use spaced study over several weeks for words with multimedia involvement with the word. Avoid trying to memorize and master a list of words in a week, such cramming does not stick in the memory.  

I would quote this paragraph about vocabulary retention strategies:

Vocabulary is responsible for 70% of reading comprehension problems in elementary schools. And while the research is clear on what most students require to build vocabulary (12 spaced multimodal encounters with a word), many schools ignore the research and reading scores suffer.  Research shows that with the right techniques for word study used ten minutes a day,  reading comprehension can improve by one fifth. It’s proven, low cost to implement, and takes no additional time during the school day.