Teaching Geometry
That Actually Makes Sense
Strategies and classroom-ready resources designed to make your daily life easier as you try to teach geometry to ELLs and struggling students. Written with real classrooms in mind, you'll find support for curriculum and language demands that seamlessly integrate into your existing lessons.
Strategies for Teaching Geometry
Classroom-tested approaches for making geometry accessible for all learners. With specific strategies for English Language Learners and other strategies that will benefit all students in building academic language and geometry skills.
Geometry is a visual course, which is an advantage for many students. The real challenge is the dense vocabulary, the language of proofs, and problem-solving.
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Use Sentence Stems for Proof Writing
Provide structured sentence stems so that students can express their geometric reasoning as they work on proofs. This allows them to complete the task before they fully internalize the vocabulary.
Example:
"I know that ___ because ___ tells us ___."
Sentence stems like this help reduce language barriers without reducing rigor.
Visual Word Walls
A word wall only works if students actually use it. Place terms where students can see them and ensure each term has a diagram. While not always possible, having students add terms to the wall helps build ownership and encourages use.
Don't have room for a word wall? Have students create personal word walls or glossaries to keep in a binder for reference at school or at home.
Recognition Before Application
Build knowledge through a clear two-phase approach. Phase one begins by teaching students to identify and name different properties and shapes. Phase two begins once students can recognize properties and requires them to apply these properties through multi-step problem solving.
Trying to teach both phases at once is the key reason students struggle with quadrilateral and triangle problems.
Geometry Blog Posts
Real insights from a secondary math classroom that are honest, practical, and written for teachers who are in the thick of it.
