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 are often described as “math stories” and can put complex mathematical operations into a more approachable form for students. But students often struggle when they see a combination of ...

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.

In a recent study from our research group, we looked into how different characteristics of mathematical word problem-solving tasks may influence elementary schooler’s performance. Mathematical word ...

A member of our research community, Terhi Vessonen and her co-authors, looked into how different characteristics of mathematical word problem-solving tasks may influence elementary schooler’s ...

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 ...

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 ...

Prodigy, a mathematics gaming company, recently made 120 examples of math word problems for students in grades 1-8 available to teachers at no cost. Approximately 16 million students, teachers and ...

The old "two trains traveling at 60 miles per hour in opposite directions" style of math word problems is less effective at training students than is dealing with abstract concepts, such as finding ...