Teaching Math Vocabulary in High School: A 5-Step Routine for ELLs and Struggling Learners
- Jul 8
- 7 min read
Vocabulary notebooks are a great idea. Teaching math vocabulary is a great idea. In all honesty, we have to teach at least some amount of academic vocabulary if we want students to truly understand mathematics.
The problem isn't whether we should teach vocabulary; it's when. If your pacing guide is anything like mine, you're already trying to fit an impossible amount of content into each week. Finding another 20-minute vocabulary lesson just isn't realistic.
Understanding the language of mathematics is essential to helping students learn math. It helps them understand instruction, understand directions, and answer questions. When we have students who don’t understand how to talk about the math, they can’t ask questions or engage with the content in truly meaningful ways.
There is also the additional challenge for English language learners: they don’t speak the language. This means they might know what to call a process in their home language but not in English, or vice versa. These students especially need intentional vocabulary instruction to make progress.
Direct vocabulary instruction is essential, then, but how do you make it fit naturally into the classroom instead of feeling like another lesson you have to squeeze into an already packed schedule?
The goal isn't to create another activity for students to complete. It's to build a system where vocabulary shows up naturally throughout a unit. Students see the words before they need them, hear them during instruction, use them during discussions, and continue revisiting them until the language becomes part of how they think about math. Here's what that looks like in my classroom.
Step 1: Pre-Teach Vocabulary by Building a Personal Math Glossary
This is the closest I will get to having students create a vocabulary notebook; it is my pre-teaching phase. The difference is I provide defined structure and scaffolds so that this doesn’t become something students write down and move on from. I also make sure to go back and reference their math glossary when they are struggling so that students learn to actually use it.
One thing I learned quickly is that not every student needs the same amount of support. Instead of expecting everyone to complete the same vocabulary notebook, I created multiple versions of my student glossary.
I have 4 versions of student handouts that I use to help my students create their personal math glossary. The most common version I use just has the terms on it and prompts students to add their own picture and definition. This works best for most students, but for my newcomers, I can reduce the cognitive load by providing fill-in-the-blank definitions or pictures for them to reference as they are working to complete their vocabulary. I usually start out using these versions and then slowly remove the scaffolds so that everyone is using the terms-only version by the end of the first quarter for semester classes or the end of the fall semester for year-long classes.
When do I add this to the class, though? During the awkward transition times between units.
I usually assign the next unit's vocabulary for students to work on after a test, so instead of taking a test and then not having anything to do, we jump right into a preview of the next unit. I know I’m the “mean” teacher making them work after a test, but it allows me to keep students calm and busy with something meaningful. For students who might take longer on a test, I give the scaffolded version. Students usually have the vocabulary to finish as homework that night, or I give them a couple of days to finish it using any spare class time.
I have student complete their vocabulary a couple of ways depending on the levels of the students in my room. I love when I can make students do a scavenger hunt in the room to find the vocabulary. It gets them up and moving, and the terms are almost always already posted on my word wall, and they will be in both the permanent wall and the highlight board.
You can read more about how I organize those in The High School Math Word Wall System I'll Actually Keep Up With.
That isn’t always possible, so I will do one of two things for low-level students: I post a completed version for them to reference; for students working on grade level, I have them use the textbook glossary, and that’s it. I’m pretty hands-off for this process, especially after the first unit or two. This is a Personal math glossary after all. I tell students that it is theirs; write definitions in a way that makes sense to you, add notes, whatever helps you remember these terms.
Step 2: Highlight Only the Vocabulary Students Need Today
I haven’t seen a lot of teachers talking about what direct vocabulary instruction looks like on a daily basis; it's just word walls and pre-teaching, and maybe a few activities here and there.
The key thing about daily vocabulary instruction is you aren’t reviewing twenty words every day. You are focusing on the terms you are going to be using that day.
In my lessons, I always pull out the key vocabulary and highlight it at the top of my students’ guided notes. It doesn’t have to be this formal; you could just use the word wall in your classroom or have students open their personal glossary. You want students to see the key terms for the day. I usually limit this to just the vocabulary students will encounter in that day's lesson. Trying to review every word in the unit would overwhelm students and defeat the purpose.
I walk my students through what each term means before the lesson even begins. This keeps the term fresh in their minds so that when I use the term during the lesson, the understanding has already begun and the connections are beginning to be made.
By reviewing the key terms at the start of the lesson, you are also helping to reduce the cognitive load on students by helping them know what terms to look out for and activating the prior knowledge you gave them by pre-teaching vocabulary.
Step 3: Talk About the Words Before Students Need to Use Them
If you want students to use the vocabulary, then you as the teacher have to use it. Students learn how to talk about math by hearing others talk about it and you as the teacher are often doing most of the talking at the beginning.
As you go through your instruction, make sure that you are taking time to discuss where your key vocabulary shows up. For example, instead of simply saying, "This line goes up," I intentionally model language like, "The graph has a positive slope." Students need to hear the academic language before they're expected to use it themselves.
Make the connection to the different visuals that are already in your lesson. Visuals don’t always have to be pictures either. You could use a step in your work to illustrate a key term. The important part is making sure that you are using the key vocabulary and taking the time to point out these terms.
By incorporating the vocabulary into the lesson, you aren’t taking time out of teaching to teach vocabulary; you are helping students learn by hearing the language before they actually need to use it.
Step 4: Expect Students to Use the Vocabulary
I’m using the language in class, and I expect my students to do the same. This forces them to internalize the vocabulary and be able to use it. I build this expectation into my classroom routines whenever students answer questions, explain their thinking, or work with a partner.
I don't expect perfect academic English from every student on day one. I expect growth. If we've explicitly taught the word slope, I want students trying to use slope when they explain their thinking. As students become more proficient, those expectations grow.
Sometimes, especially in the beginning, this requires prompting from the teacher. We might be looking at the graph of a line and a student says, “It goes up.” I don’t say that their answer is wrong, but I prompt and push for more. I ask them what that means. I might walk over to my word wall and do some pointing if students struggle. I want to support them as they learn to use the vocabulary, but the expectation is still that they are using it.
Step 5: Keep the Vocabulary Alive
While we aren’t reviewing all terms every day, we do want to keep the vocabulary a part of the entire unit. This could be as simple as a quick refresh of a term when it shows up in later lessons or using a vocabulary review activity during downtime later in the unit. Usually around halfway through the unit, I will encourage my students to make flashcards if they are still struggling to remember the terms. Then, if there are ever a couple of minutes at the end of class, they can use the flashcards to review.
If vocabulary is important enough to teach, it's important enough to assess. That doesn't mean every assessment needs a matching-definition section, but students should regularly encounter the language in questions, discussions, and review activities.
Final Thoughts
One thing I've learned over the years is that students don't learn math vocabulary because they completed a vocabulary page once. They learn it because they encounter the words over and over again in meaningful ways.
That's why I don't think of vocabulary as a separate lesson anymore. It's something that should be woven into everything we already do. Students preview the language before the unit, hear it during instruction, practice it in discussions, use it when explaining their thinking, and revisit it throughout the unit. Little by little, those words become part of how they think about mathematics instead of just another list to memorize.
This system has changed a lot since my first year of teaching, especially as I learned more about supporting English language learners. What hasn't changed is the goal: helping students build the language they need to understand math and communicate their thinking with confidence.
If you're looking to simplify vocabulary instruction, don't feel like you need to implement all five steps tomorrow. Start with one. Maybe that's creating a personal math glossary, highlighting vocabulary at the beginning of each lesson, or simply asking students to use one new math term when they explain an answer. Small, consistent routines are what make the biggest difference over time.
If you'd like to see the resources I use to support this system, you can explore my High School Math Word Wall System to see how I organize vocabulary in my classroom, or check out my Algebra 1 and Geometry Word Wall & Student Handout Bundles, which include the scaffolded glossary pages I described throughout this post.
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