Reading Numbers, Data, and Symbols Aloud

Read statistics, units, and symbols accurately so data makes sense.

Informational texts mix words with numbers and symbols, and misreading them changes the meaning. Learn the spoken forms. '3. 5 km' is read 'three point five kilometers. ' '45%' is 'forty-five percent. ' '1/4' is 'one fourth' or 'one quarter. ' '-10°C' is 'minus ten degrees Celsius. ' '1990s' is 'the nineteen-nineties. ' A range such as '20–30 cm' is 'twenty to thirty centimeters. ' Example: 'Between 2010 and 2020, the town's population grew by 12%, from 8,400 to about 9,400.

' Read aloud: 'Between twenty ten and twenty twenty, the town's population grew by twelve percent, from eight thousand four hundred to about nine thousand four hundred. ' Notice that reading the numbers correctly also lets you check the math: 8,400 plus 12% is about 9,400, so the sentence is consistent. Fluent reading of data means saying it accurately and thinking about what it shows.

• 1Learn the spoken forms of units, percents, and symbols
• 2Read ranges and decades as phrases
• 3Accurate reading lets you check whether data makes sense