Making the Math Curse a Blessing: Math Word Problems

Pat LeRoy
St. Francis of Assisi School
Seahurst, WA

 

As a student in grade school I don't remember feeling very confident in my math abilities. In fact I remember clearly dreading math word problems. As a teacher I wanted to change that feeling for my students, especially since I tend to work exclusively with the struggling mathematicians in our building. I sat down one evening and tried to think about what stressed me about word problems. It came down to; "They seemed overwhelming." I needed to figure out a way to simplify and take the mystery out of the issue.

So Monday morning I walked into my math classroom and handed each student a 3X5 card with a number problem on it. I asked them to write a story about the problem, reminding them that a story needed characters and a plot. Immediately Kyle's hand shot up, "This is a math class not a writing class." I responded with a cryptic Mona Lisa smile and said, "It's both."

We started with four basic rules.

  1. You must have a main character or characters
  2. You must have a problem for the character to solve
  3. You can have no less than 4 sentences.
  4. You must ask a question

I handed Kyle this card

 

 (3x5 ) - 2=?

His response was:

 

Charlie, Mack and Fred are walking to the store. They each are carrying 5 pop bottles to return for the 5-cent deposit. Unfortunately, Fred is a little flaky and lost two of his cans on the way. How many cans did the boys have altogether?

The next step was to trade problems and see if they could solve each other's problems.

As students became more comfortable with the concept of writing math story problems we gradually added problems that were more difficult with two or three steps. We even changed our rules to require unnecessary information. The anxiety level appeared to go down as they began to see that these problems really broke down to simply numbers.

Kim Sutton, a mathematics teacher and instructor for Creative Mathematics says, "Mathematics is the pursuit of laziness!" Students saw that this was true with story problems.

My next mission was to help my students break down the written material so that they could weed out the equation. We developed these rules:

  1. Read the problem
  2. Use a highlighter and highlight important numbers you will need to use
  3. Decide what operation you will need to use and write it above the problem
  4. Underline the label
  5. Cross out words that you do not need

15 + 20+ 35 =70 minutes 9:00 AM - 70 minutes = 7:50 AM

These simple approaches gave the students the confidence to approach story problems head on.

Extensions

Students became so excited about their number projects that they decided to create books. One side of the paper they wrote the problem and decorated the page on the back side they wrote the solution. We laminated the pages and bound them. Now when someone is finished with work they can get one of the books and using a vis-a-vis pen solve the problem and check their answers,

Books can be written with a certain theme that can tie into other curriculum areas such as science and social studies. Lewis and Clark can spark a multitude of math thinking!

 

EALRS

2.1 Students will investigate situations

2.2 Students will formulate questions and define the problems.

2.3 Students will construct solutions.

  1. The student writes clearly and effectively using the following;
    1. develops a concept and design
    2. uses style appropriate to audience and purpose
    3. applies writing conventions