I wanted to share with you a strategy that I have found works very well with students who find word problems difficult to digest :) I've noticed that so often students read the word problem, but don't really comprehend the situation given or what is being asked. They tend to think every number given is important, and they tend to want to go straight to adding to solve everything. Sometimes, as is often the case at the school I teach at, the students' reading levels are so low that they focus more on deciphering the words than comprehending them. This strategy that I will share is by no means the solution to all your students' word problem solving issues, but I have found after using it for several weeks in my math intervention groups, that students are less intimidated by the problems and have a better idea of steps they need to take to solve them.
For this strategy to be successful, you need to model it over and over using think-alouds, and student participation. As they become more familiar with it, gradually release them to do more and more of it on their own. Where ever you see them start to have trouble - go back and model some more.
So here it goes. I call it the "1-2-3" Strategy because it involves reading the word problem a minimum of 3 times. Each time they read it, they have a different job. Oh - and I find that it works best to make sure each student has a hard copy of the word problem so that they can write on it and do exactly what I do as I model how to solve it. I use task cards all the time and can usually fit 4 or 6 to one page, so it does not require too much paper.
First Read:
Read the word problem for comprehension and visualize the situation. I tell my students to think about the word problem as a story, and imagine what they would draw if they were the illustrators.
So here is a word problem from one of my TPT math products for 4th grade that I will use to demonstrate this strategy:
When modeling - I would read it to the students - or give them a chance to read it on their own and then take it line by and ask students to describe the illustrations they would draw to match each sentence. After hearing their ideas, I might also share what I visualized by saying: "I visualized this cute little bug climbing up a banana tree and seeing a ton of bananas! I visualized her counting each and every one and realizing that there were 434 bananas up in that tree. That is a lot of bananas in one tree! I visualized her noticing that 128 bananas were in big bunches of 8. Have you ever seen a bunch of 8 bananas at the grocery store? I then visualized her noticing that even more of the bananas were in bunches of 6, and counting how many bunches of 6 bananas she saw."
When I can, I try to relate a real world situation to the word problems so that students have a frame of reference. This is especially important for students from other cultures or low socio-economic status because their life experiences may be very different or limited from what you or I might consider the norm.
When we finish the first step - I tell my students that they can put their first check mark on the word problem to show that we have read it once.
So here you have it:
Second Read:
Underline the question and create an answer statement for the question on the back of the page.
When modeling, the students or I would read the word problem a second time and underline the question at the end. I always ask my students "Why is this step so important?" By now they know they had better tell me "because if you don't know the question, you don't know how to answer it or what information in the word problem is important." Even though my students hear this every day, I still reinforce it with each word problem. By using this strategy over and over they will begin to realize that sometimes information is given in problems that is NOT important for finding the solution. Again, reinforce that the question lets us know what information in the word problem is going to be important. So now, here is what my word problem task card looks like:
BUT... we are not done with step 2 - so no second check yet kiddies.
OK - the second part of step 2 seems to me to be one of the hardest concepts for students to learn - creating an answer statement. The good news is - once it clicks they will have no trouble from now on doing this - it's just that getting it to "click" might take some time. By turning the question into an answer statement, my students are reminded of what the task at hand is. There is no one way to write an answer statement. I first teach my students to take out the question words and put a blank in its place. Once they get the hang of this, I teach them to make it sound better by taking out the question words, find who or what the question is about, and write that name or word first and go from there. For this example my students might write;
_________ bunches of six bananas Braelee Bug saw. or
Braelee Bug saw ___________ bunches of six bananas.
The first sentence sounds a bit strange, but it will do. They might not know what the word "beheld" means, so I would explain the meaning, but tell them they could substitute "saw" for "beheld". If your students are like mine, they will get hung up on trying to spell everything correctly. I always tell them, "Spelling is not the focus here, this is math class, so do your best, but don't stress" (about spelling that is).
OK - NOW my students would be ready for that second check - YIPEE!:
Third Read:
Read the problem one more time and circle the words and numbers that are important for solving the problem. Make a plan for solving.
As we go through sentence by sentence, I would call on students to ask them what they think is important. You will find that students want to circle the entire sentence, but just work with them on limiting it to one or two words at a time. When a student wants to circle a name or number that is not important for solving the question, re-read the question and explain why this piece of information is not necessary. During this step I also encourage students make note of the operation they will use (+ - x /) in each problem solving step.
So for this example here is what I would do:
*Read the first sentence together; ask students what is important; circle the name "Braelee Bug" and explain she is important because her name is mentioned in the question, and that is who the word problem is about.
*Read the second sentence; remind students that "beheld" means "saw"; circle 434 bananas and explain that is important because that is the total number of bananas she saw and we need the total to find a part.
*Read the third sentence; ask students what is important; circle the number 128. My students would likely want to circle the number 8 as well, but I would take it back to the question and explain that we are only concerned with how many bunches of 6 bananas Braelee-Bug saw.
*Read the fourth sentence (pretend that comma is a period because it should have been); ask students what is important; circle the number 6 and circle the words "the rest". We are not suppose to use the term "key words" at our school, but whatever you want (or don't want) to call it, in my opinion some words/or phrases are just important and usually signal us as to what type of problem we are dealing with. "The rest" is one of those phrases because it signals us that this is a "part-part-whole" problem and will involve subtraction. I would reinforce this with my students and then ask them, "If we don't need the 128 bananas that are part of the total (since they are in bunches of 6), then how could we figure out what 'the rest' is or how many bananas we do need in order to answer the question?" It is important to keep prompting until your students "get it". I prompt the heck out of my students because I want them to feel that they have come up with the method for finding the answer on their own. I want them to think that I think that they knew it all along - make sense? This allows them to gain confidence in their abilities and will lower their stress level on test days. It will also keep them engaged, because they feel so proud of how smart they are (and proud of how smart they think I think they are :)
Once my students came to the realization that this part of the problem involves subtraction, I would have them write "434 - 128" above the sentence (that should be) #4 to remind them that this is the first step in our problem solving plan. I don't have them solve it yet - they just write it down.
*Read the fifth sentence; ask students what is important; circle the words "bunches of 6". I would prompt my students by saying "Why is the word "bunches" so important?" If they don't know I might say, "Are we trying to find out how many BANANAS Braelee bug saw or how many BUNCHES she saw?"
When students respond with "bunches" I might keep prompting or do a think aloud by saying something like: "Let me think about that for a minute. Would the number of bunches be larger or smaller than the number of bananas? I think it would be smaller since 6 bananas is only 1 bunch, so the number of bunches is going to be smaller. I also know that when I have "equal groups" of something I am either going to multiply or divide. I would be dividing in this case because the number that I am looking for is going to be smaller not larger. So, I would be dividing the number of bananas left by 6."
Let me tell you - that second operation (whether it is addition, subtraction, multiplication, or division) is the thorn in this teacher's side. By this time, my intervention students are usually so tired of the word problem that they are ready to just solve the little bugger and call it a day. When they want to skip over the second operation, I remind them to go back to the question to make sure that the method or methods they have chosen for solving will actually solve what the problem is asking. In this case, if we did the first operation of subtraction, found that "the rest" was 306 bananas, and wrote that down as our answer, we would be wrong because the QUESTION does not ask for "how many BANANAS" it asks for "how many BUNCHES"
Once my students understood that division was also on the menu for solving the problem, I would have them write down "divide by 6" on their task card above the question sentence.
So before they actually get to the "solving" part, here is what their task card would look like:
Time to Solve:
Now my students would be ready to solve and they have a good plan!! All they need to do is go back to the top of their task card and revisit the notes they have made. When they do, they will see that the first step is subtracting 128 from 434, and the second step is to divide the difference that they find by 6 - right?
Well - almost. When first introducing this strategy it is important to have your students restate their plan to you BEFORE you let them attempt to solve. I must confess - I made the mistake at first of going through all this rigmarole and then just assuming they now knew exactly how to follow the plan we had made. When they all looked at me clueless the first time, I sort of, well ok not sort of, I DID get frustrated (pretty frustrated infact) - not a shining teacher moment for sure. I quickly realized that I needed to follow through and model ALL parts of the process - not just stop after check number 3, but have students restate the plan, and sometimes even model the actual solving itself. I have also realized (especially since I teach tier 2 and tier 3 kiddos) that I have to do this "modely" thing day in and day out for many many days before they can take the reigns and do it on their own. It will seem like forever - but they will - I promise - and boy is that a good day! Not all of my students are there yet, and some may never be, but several of them are now using my 1-2-3 strategy on their own and their recent test scores have convinced me that this strategy really does work.
Whether you try this 1-2-3 strategy for solving word problems or have one of your own that works well, I think a big key is (of course modeling the process over and over) but also consistency. Doing the same thing over and over eventually becomes habit, or second nature. If we not only say but show them over and over what to do, they will eventually do it. And if they don't - then just bribe them with candy - lots and lots of candy- cause that works too. (just kiddin')
If you try this strategy out with your students, let me know how it goes. Tell me what worked, or something that might work better. I would love to hear your ideas on this topic and learn from you as well!
No comments:
Post a Comment