Generally, students find Math word problems to be very difficult. It is even more difficult to solve two-step word problems. Hence it is a challenging task to teach students how to solve word problems. In every grade, in every class and in every standardized math test you can see the presence of word problems. Students must master in word problems in order to survive in our world. The main difficulty why students find it tricky is due to the fact that the operations are hidden.
So, here are some tips that can help to easily master word problems,
- Make students practice: Most of the times students tend to forget what they have studied. When it comes to word problems students fail to understand the question. Therefore it becomes difficult for the students to solve these type of problems. The best solution to this problem is practice. You can introduce many forms of practice including homework, independent activities etc. Variety is crucial in keeping your students practising and improving their skills.
- Teach this type of problem more often: Studentsgenerally don’t understand the gist of the word problem and hence find it quite difficult. To eradicate this problem, in small intervals, teach students the concept again and again. This will not only help students to retain the concept in their mind for a longer period of time but also will help them to master the word problem.
- Make a strategy: Some students follow a systematic format for studying. For these type of students, you have to come up with a formal strategy i.e. a particular system to follow while solving the word problems. You have to prepare the strategy very carefully and it should be straight forward. In this way, it will be less confusing and easy for the students to understand the problem.
- Create your own word problems: Tell students to write their own word problems and solve it. This will help students to understand the basics of word problems making them prepared for doing well in this regard. Once students have a good grip on these problems, you will see how their understanding of word problems will grow.
- Share the strategy: Talk about how there are many different ways to solve a word problem and that it is 100% okay to solve a problem with a different strategy than someone else. Embrace this idea and tell your students that our minds are all unique and solving these problems just has to make sense to your own mind.
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About Author: Arpita Das enjoys inspiring others through her writing and blogging and is presently working as a content writer at Byju’s.Since when she started her career she has written articles and blogs. If you wish to discuss any related concepts or ideas feel free to drop an email at [email protected]
