Word Problems
Word Problems seem to send almost all kids for a loop. Many kids struggle with figuring out word problems, so I have done some research to get to the bottom of how we can help them solve and understand the problems better.
Article 1
How to Teach Elementary Problem Solving Strategies
Helping your child learn how to serve word problems is something that requires time and patience. The end result is full of gratitude when your child understands the information. The principles your child is learning will be applicable to his or her whole life. If we teach our students problem solving skills at an early level, they will be ingrained into their brains for the rest of their lives and it will become second nature to them. In the real world, after school, problem solving skills are a big asset to have, and many jobs require it. Without an early start to learning problem solving skills, children won't be able to think as logically through situations. This article is all about incorporating problem solving at an early age, to develop those lifelong skills.
http://www.ehow.com/how_4914462_teach-elementary-problem-solving-strategies.html
Helping your child learn how to serve word problems is something that requires time and patience. The end result is full of gratitude when your child understands the information. The principles your child is learning will be applicable to his or her whole life. If we teach our students problem solving skills at an early level, they will be ingrained into their brains for the rest of their lives and it will become second nature to them. In the real world, after school, problem solving skills are a big asset to have, and many jobs require it. Without an early start to learning problem solving skills, children won't be able to think as logically through situations. This article is all about incorporating problem solving at an early age, to develop those lifelong skills.
http://www.ehow.com/how_4914462_teach-elementary-problem-solving-strategies.html
Article 2
Solving math word problems in elementary grades
Most children find stories, problems, and puzzles to very interesting, so why do so many of them have trouble solving them? For starters, when word problems are incorporated into the lesson, they usually are at the end after everything else. If the lesson is about multiplication, the word problem will be about the same. Most of the time, at least in First Grade anyways, there are two numbers in the problem and after a while, the kids barely even read the problem. They look at the two numbers, think about what strand of math they are doing, and solve the problem accordingly. They are very used to step-by-step problems that when it doesn't follow the same order that your would write the equation in, they are lost. This lesson goes more in depth of analyzing word problems, but something you can do to try and make them better word problem solvers is to mix up the kinds of problems so they aren't all so step-by-step.
http://www.homeschoolmath.net/teaching/word_problems.php
Most children find stories, problems, and puzzles to very interesting, so why do so many of them have trouble solving them? For starters, when word problems are incorporated into the lesson, they usually are at the end after everything else. If the lesson is about multiplication, the word problem will be about the same. Most of the time, at least in First Grade anyways, there are two numbers in the problem and after a while, the kids barely even read the problem. They look at the two numbers, think about what strand of math they are doing, and solve the problem accordingly. They are very used to step-by-step problems that when it doesn't follow the same order that your would write the equation in, they are lost. This lesson goes more in depth of analyzing word problems, but something you can do to try and make them better word problem solvers is to mix up the kinds of problems so they aren't all so step-by-step.
http://www.homeschoolmath.net/teaching/word_problems.php