Students often struggle to connect math with the real world. Word problems—a combination of words, numbers, and mathematical operations—can be a perfect vehicle to take abstract numbers off the page.

Word problems try and tell students a story about the math problem in front of them. They are a useful way to connect abstract numbers to concrete situations, so students can learn early on to apply ...

Segue Institute for Learning teacher Cassandra Santiago introduces a lesson on word problems to her first graders one spring afternoon. Credit: Phillip Keith for The Hechinger Report The Hechinger ...

Gérard Vergnaud (1982) contends that the three types of meanings represented by natural numbers can also influence the levels of difficulty of word problems. These meanings include (1) quantities, (2) ...

A new study from the University of Kansas explores the role of working memory in word problem-solving for students with and without math difficulties. Researchers found that using interventions to ...

This story was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news outlet focused on education. The Hechinger Report is a national nonprofit newsroom that reports on one topic: education.

Solving word problems is a key component of math curriculum in primary schools. One must have acquired basic language skills to make sense of word problems. So why do children still find certain word ...