Teaching Word Problems for Math Test Success

The first nine weeks is ending and before you know it all the holidays will go rushing by and you will be staring at those end of the year state assessments head on.  We have the perfect tool for you to use throughout the year that will help your students have more success!  Have you checked out our Ultimate Guide to Solving Word Problems?  If not, grab your free copy now and start implementing the research proven strategies found in this guide to help your students become better at solving word problems.    

Why use the word problem solving strategies taught in our Word Problem Solving Guide? Here are 4 reasons:

1. More than half of the questions your students will encounter on the math section of state assessments will most likely be word problems.  In a study conducted at the University of Texas in Austin, 747 high stakes test released items from grades 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8 were analyzed by a team of expert educators and out of those 747 problems, 92% (690 problems) of them were found to be text-based!!  It doesn’t matter if your students can add, subtract, multiply and divide whole numbers when given a computational problem if they can’t also determine when to use each operation when solving a word problem.
2. Many of us are currently teaching our students the wrong strategy for solving word problems (previously myself included) by teaching them that certain keywords can be linked to certain operations, and they are encouraged (or required) to look for these keywords in word problems to determine how to solve them.  This strategy is somewhat effective in the early elementary years of mathematics but becomes extremely unreliable in the upper elementary grades and into middle school leaving students feeling even more frustrated and defeated. For more information check out our article, The Case Against Keywords. 
3. Word problems are one of the most challenging parts of math for students. Word problems are inherently difficult because there are so many steps students must get right in order to arrive at a correct answer. Even students who otherwise enjoy math often become frustrated and give up when confronted with a word problem.
4. The strategies we outline in our Free Guide to Solving Math Word Problems work! Research has shown that not only is the schema-based approach to solving word problems you will see in the guide more effective than teaching a keyword strategy, but it is also listed as an evidence based mathematical practice for improving students' mathematics performance by the IRIS Center Peabody College Vanderbilt University.

Our FREE Guide to Solving Math Word Problems is a great resource to help you start implementing this strategy in your classroom or at home.  If you are interested in more resources teaching and learning how to solve word problems using a schema-based approach check out our digital course, Word Problems Unlocked with step by step instruction on solving the 5 most common types of word problems in grades 3-6.