Teaching students how to use problem-solving strategies in math to solve word problems is important. However, it can be incredibly difficult!
Whenever you say the phrase “word problems”, you can anticipate anything from blank stares to looks of pure horror on your student’s faces. How can we help our students conquer their fear of word problems?
The simple ingredient is giving our students some problem-solving strategies that will help them tackle ANY word problem they come across. Teaching word problem strategies provide students with some great first-step ideas.
Here are three strategies I LOVE teaching my students. I have also included a FREEBIE bulletin board display that goes along with the last strategy 🎉
Word Problem Strategy #1: Visualize
Often, our students can get stuck in the language of the word problem itself. It can be confusing when you are talking about different colored beads and how many need to go on each necklace.
Encourage your students to problem solve and start by drawing a picture! ✍️ As they read through the problem, have them stop and draw a picture of what they are reading about.
For example, the word problem says they have 12 yellow beads. Great! Pause and draw 12 circles on your piece of paper with a “Y” label above them.
Then, tackle the next phrase or sentence. Start by looking back over the pictures you have to help you problem solve! What information do you already know? What information are you trying to figure out? Teaching students to approach word problems slowly and with visuals can help students feel less overwhelmed.
Word Problem Strategy #2: Ask Questions
Word problems can get confusing with long sentences and lots of extra, unnecessary details. Teach your students some common questions they can use to solve word problems!
Here are three of my favorite questions to encourage students to use:
1️⃣ What do we know?
2️⃣ What do we need to find out?
3️⃣ How can we get there? (What math skills and strategies can we try to get there?)
These questions help students come back to the essential aspects of the question that are key to being able to problem solve. And as a free bonus, you can print this poster and hang it in your classroom! 🙂
Word Problem Strategy #3: CUBES
This final strategy is my favorite because you can break down the word problem into many parts making it easy to digest.
CUBES is an acronym that stands for five different steps to take when approaching and solving math word problems. I love it because it keeps the steps simple, action-focused, and easy to remember!
Here is the breakdown of the acronym and the different steps:
C: Circle important numbers ⭕
Help draw students’ attention to the numbers the problem includes. Encourage them to ask questions about what these numbers mean and why they are important (or aren’t).
U: Underline the question ✏️
Make it easy to bring your students back to what they are actually trying to answer and solve!
B: Box the key words ⏹️
Become detectives who notice different keywords in word problems that give you a clue about what skill to use (add, subtract, multiply or divide).
E: Eliminate extra information & Evaluate: What steps should I take? ❌
Remind students some word problems are tricky and include information that isn’t needed!
Help students think through all the information they pulled out to figure out what step they should take next!
S: Solve & Check ✅
Actually, get started solving the problem! Once you are finished, check your answer to make sure it makes sense!
While it can feel like a lot of steps to take with every problem, it is a HUGE way to help students feel empowered and confident as they work towards becoming amazing problem solvers in math.
To help students (and you) remember all of the different steps, I have created a FREE CUBES bulletin board display for you to use in your classroom!
Click here to grab your FREE CUBES classroom display! Each poster is regular printer paper size so you can print it from a home or school printer and hang on a whiteboard, bulletin board, math wall, etc!
Teaching math can be difficult. Knowing strategies to teach students makes it much easier!
If you are looking for strategies to help your students learn their multiplication facts or practice skip counting, this blog post describes many ways to make skip counting practice easy and fun!