Before we begin to answer the question; what is Mathematical Literacy? We must first explore the question; what is literacy? Literacy can simply be defined as the ability to read, write, speak, and use language. Mathematical Literacy implies that a person is able to reason, analyze, formulate, and solve problems in a real-world setting (Martin, 2007). Further, Mathematical Literacy also is the ability to use mathematical knowledge, methods, and processes applied in various contexts in insightful and reflective ways. Our students first use mathematics as a way to quantify and understand their world around them. They use reasoning, prior knowledge, and arithmetic to solve real world problems. Everywhere we look, we can see math; the height of buildings, the length of a street, the volume of a container, the weight of our own bodies. Mathematics can be used in many different ways to solve many different problems.
When I teach mathematics in elementary school, I always inform the students that mathematics is not necessarily knowing how to solve the problem or use the correct formula but rather the ability to recognize the pattern or the relationships between and among the quantities.
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