- 1). Teach students key words and phrases that indicate which operation(s) to perform. Certain words and phrases in word problems give students clues about whether they should add, subtract, divide, multiply or if they need to perform a combination of operations. "Altogether" and "total" indicate addition, whereas "difference" or "how much more" let students know they need to subtract. The phrase "equal groups" indicates division, while "each" can indicate either multiplication or division.
- 2). Teach students to read the problem carefully and critically. Have students read the problem once in its entirety and underline the final question. Then have them reread the problem, highlight keywords and eliminate unnecessary information. Sometimes problems include sentences and references to numbers that are irrelevant to the problem. Have students draw a line through this information.
- 3). Provide a graphic organizer, or teach students to create their own, to help them organize the key information in the problem. The graphic organizer should have fields for each piece of key information from the problem, for information the student does not know but needs to know to solve the problem and for the final question.
- 4). Teach students to make a problem-solving plan. Use the information from the graphic organizer to write, in words, what they will do to solve the problem. Do not insert specific information from the problem. For example if the problem asks how many eggs are in three cartons, the student should write, "Multiply the number of eggs in each carton by the total number of cartons."
- 5). Have students replace words in the plan with numbers and do the math. Once students have their plan written out, they should insert the numbers into the plan and perform the necessary operations. The plan in step four now becomes, "Multiply 12 by 3 to determine the total number of eggs."
- 6). Teach students how to check their work. Student should not only verify they performed the necessary operations correctly, but also that their answer makes sense and answers the question. With more complex or involved problems, students can mistakenly make a plan that does not answer the question. If they simply check their math, they will think the answer is correct. It is important to return to the problem and verify the result really does answer the question.