Functional Literacy and Functional Math teach real-world skills like reading recipes and writing checks alongside core academics in special education. They're essential for junior high and high school students but optional enrichment for elementary students, always paired with core subjects, never replacing them.
Within Curriculum Access, you've noticed we have functional subjects and our core subjects. Our functional subjects include functional literacy and functional math. You may be wondering, when do I use math versus functional math? So let's dig into the core subjects versus the functional subjects. The functional subjects were really created from my experience in the classroom. I spent most of my experience in a junior high classroom. In that junior high position, I found it very challenging to find age-appropriate, real-world-based content that still focused on foundational and core skills. And that's really where this subject line came from, is my need in that area. And I know I've talked to so many high school transition and junior high teachers as well that have had that same struggle. So we created Functional Literacy and Functional Math to work on academic subjects with a functional twist. We're still working on academics. It's my biggest pet peeve when people ask me like, hey, when should I switch from academic to functional? I'm like, never. We always need academics. We live in a text-rich world. We live in a world where we need math skills every single day. And that's what these subjects teach. They teach how to use literacy skills and math skills in an everyday way. If you've looked into functional literacy, you've seen that it's filled with real-world photos. Math is filled with real-world photos as well as real-world real-world scenarios, things that you're using math for on a daily basis, in a recipe, measuring something, literacy skills, how to write a check, how to use a calendar, how to send a text message, things that we do all the time and don't even realize how important our literacy skills are when we're doing it. So if you're like, when do I use which one and can I use both? They were designed to complement each other. All of the skills align, meaning if you're in Level 2, Unit 2, the same types of skills are going to be in Functional Literacy Level 2 Unit 2. They are going to complement each other, and functional— the functional subjects were created knowing the curriculum map of the core subjects. If you are in junior high, high school transition, to me the functional subjects are a must. You must use them because this is what is preparing our students for the real world. I would complement it with the core depending on your schedule and depending on the student. If the student has a really strong history of learning and they have a great set of skills within the core subjects, and you might need just the functional literacy, but I would go through and make sure that these skills are really mastered as well. So basically junior high, high school transition, we're definitely doing functional and then the option to add on the core. Now let's talk elementary. We must do the core. We must do the regular math, the regular language arts, and you have the option to add on the functional here. There might be students that really benefit, especially as we get later into elementary, from the vocabulary, the practice, the discussions that the functional subjects bring. So you can definitely layer those in, and I've seen them really successful with 2nd graders, 3rd graders, 5th graders on adding in this subject as a complement. It's also a setup I've seen where maybe the teacher teaches the core subject and the paraprofessional teaches the complementary functional subjects as as an extension. So lots of great ways to utilize both subjects and both lines. Feel free to mix and match and let us know what works for you.
