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Teaching Math for All Learners
Six educators from All Learners Network share the lesson structure, the assessment protocols, and the student conversations that empower you to teach math so every learner can reach grade-level content.
Edited by Sandi Stanhope, Robert Laird, and John Tapper, PhD.
Downloaded by more than 1,800 educators.
Three Ways This Approach Stands Apart
This book offers an approach to instruction for all students that is unique in three ways:
The use of inquiry to guide instruction, so students investigate mathematical ideas and make sense of them.
A strong focus on continuous formative assessment to understand student thinking and inform instructional decisions.
The use of a Main Lesson and Math Menu approach that addresses the need for both inclusion and differentiation.
Teaching Math for All Learners is written for classroom teachers, math interventionists, instructional coaches, special educators, and anyone working to make grade-level math accessible to every learner. As the book puts it: "When we talk about all learners, we really do mean all."
Six Chapters From Educators Who Have Done This Work
What It Means to Teach Math for All Learners
John Tapper, PhD
Why closing the math achievement gap starts with understanding how students think.
The Anatomy of an All Learners Math Lesson
John Tapper, PhD
Inside the four-part lesson structure—Launch, Main Lesson, Math Menu, and Closure—that makes inclusion and differentiation possible in the same class period.
What's Important?
High Leverage Concepts
Sandi Stanhope and Erin Oliver
An introduction to High Leverage Concepts and the Math Achievement Progression that guides instruction and intervention at every grade level.
Informing Instruction:
Formative Assessment
Sandi Stanhope and Erica Moy
How the ALN Work Sort Protocol turns everyday student work into a clear plan for what to teach next.
What the Students Have to Say
Fran Huntoon and Erin Oliver
Transcripts of student conversations, and what they show about how understanding develops when children talk through their thinking.
Belonging and Engagement
Ashley Marlow
Why belonging comes before learning, and how small classroom moments shape whether students see themselves as capable mathematicians.
A Closer Look Inside
"Launch has been an amazing addition to my math instructional routine. … I rarely see my students with disabilities raise their hands during first instruction, but when an image is presented for Launch, their hands shoot up in the air."
Trudy Cioffi
Third Grade Teacher, Colchester School District
Chapter 6, Page 99
We see math as information that we don't really understand. It's as if we had memorized lots of dates and events but had almost no idea how they formed the story of history. We know about math, but we don't understand it.
Chapter 1, Page 6
Carrots are harvested one at a time. When one pulls a carrot top from the ground one carrot is exposed. However, when a potato plant is tugged from the ground one exposes a number of potatoes connected by the web of the plant's roots. … It's easier to retrieve concepts that are interconnected like potatoes rather than concepts that are isolated like carrots.
Chapter 5, Page 86
Written by Educators, for Educators
This book grew out of work All Learners Network has been doing in schools since 2015, before it was even a formal organization. It was edited by three veteran math educators: Sandi Stanhope, a classroom teacher, math interventionist, and coach for over 25 years before becoming ALN's Chief Learning Officer; Robert Laird, who led teaching, learning, and research at the Vermont Mathematics Initiative for over 15 years and co-authored two Routledge books on teaching fractions and multiplication; and John Tapper, PhD, ALN's founder, whose research on students who struggle with math is published by Heinemann and grounded in his doctoral work at NYU. Four additional ALN educators, spanning coaching, formative assessment, and student voice, contributed individual chapters.
Download Teaching Math
for All Learners
Join more than 1,800 educators who have already downloaded it. Fill out the form and we'll email you the full 108-page book.
Ready to Put These Ideas Into Practice?
All Learners Online
The platform built on the same High Leverage Concepts framework as the book. 2,000+ instructional resources, 30+ hours of professional development, and an AI Math Coach, ready when you are.
Professional Development Services
Bring ALN facilitators into your school or district for in-person professional development grounded in High Leverage Concepts and your students' data.
The Evidence
See what happened across ten districts and eight years of data when schools worked from this framework.
Frequently Asked Questions
Teaching Math for All Learners is a free book on inclusive math instruction for K-8 educators. It covers the High Leverage Concepts framework, lesson design, formative assessment, student discourse, and belonging, written by six educators from All Learners Network, drawing on work in schools and districts since 2015.
The book was edited by Sandi Stanhope, Robert Laird, and John Tapper, PhD, founder and CEO of All Learners Network. Additional chapters were written by ALN educators Erin Oliver, Erica Moy, Fran Huntoon, and Ashley Marlow.
Yes. Complete the short form on this page and the full PDF will be emailed to you directly.
The book addresses math instruction for grades PreK through 8, with strategies designed to support learner variability across grade levels.
Yes. The book includes full transcripts of student problem-solving conversations, student work samples sorted using ALN's formative assessment protocol, and a classroom teacher testimonial from Colchester School District.
Teaching Math for All Learners is written for anyone teaching math in grades PreK through 8, including general education teachers, special educators, math interventionists, and instructional coaches. It is especially useful if you are supporting a wide range of learners in the same classroom and want a shared approach for reaching all of them.
