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.

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.

In Central Falls, R.I., teachers are trying new strategies that move away from focusing on “key words,” the traditional, simplistic approach that often leads younger students astray CENTRAL FALLS, R.I ...

Este artículo está disponible en español. Léelo en español. When Nicole Thompson teaches a math word problem to her fourth grade class in Pajaro Valley Unified, she has the class read it over three ...

Students who can't understand instructions for math problems face unnecessary barriers to achievement. Students who don’t read well or lack crucial vocabulary often face unnecessary obstacles—not just ...

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 ...

Children often use these “schemes of action” to solve math word problems. Therefore, Combine problems (e.g., “John has four pencils and Steven has three. How many do they have altogether?”) are easy ...