Why Content-Area Literacy Messages Do Not Speak to Mathematics Teachers: A Critical Content Analysis∗

Much has been written to convince content-area teachers to include literacy instruction as part of their regular content instruction. The purpose of this study was to determine how the messages available in the literature are framed and how they might be viewed by content-area teachers, especially mathematics teachers. The analysis revealed that messages available to content-area teachers about literacy neglect, deemphasize, or misrepresent mathematics and/or mathematics education. These findings may help explain why content-area teachers, particularly mathematics teachers, resist ideas related to content-area literacy instruction