We often mistake "delivering content" for "teaching. It’s an easy trap to fall into, especially when the concepts are tough. When students struggle, our instinct as educators is often to take over—to explain more, to talk longer, and to stand at the front of the room and "pour" knowledge into them. Ms. Diaz, a 4th-grade teacher I’ve been coaching, had this particular challenge, and she wanted to shift how she delivered content.

Facilitating learning shifts the focus from the teacher as the sole source of knowledge to the students as active participants in their own discovery. Ms. G’s role had to evolve into one of creating experiences, posing questions, providing resources, and guiding students as they explored and made sense of meaning.

When we ask a student with low-level reading skills to solve a complex word problem, we are asking so much more than to simply calculate some numbers. We’re asking them to decode and switch back and forth between linguistic and mathematical concepts. That is a huge cognitive load! If we don't “decouple” reading ability from mathematical reasoning, we risk “labeling” kids with a math disability when that is absolutely not the case. It’s reading that becomes the barrier to math.