Reading in Math?

I always get a good laugh at the math word problem memes! Seriously who buys
60 watermelons and has to return 23? I laugh because I remember feeling, just like so
many students, horrified and dreaded having to solve word problems. Knowing this feeling,
I never want my students to experience the anxiety or tell themselves they can’t solve the
problems so they give up before even reading the problem. When we work on word problems
I relate it to using our reading strategy of a close reading.

Step 1: Students read the word problem for the gist or general understanding. They are not
solving or doing any math. They need to first understand what they are reading. After they
read the problem they ask themselves, “How would I summarize?” “Describe the problem in
my own words?” “ What is happening?”  They should be creating a mental picture of the
problem in their minds just like when reading a story.  

Step 2. We go back and reread the problem. This helps to deepen our understanding and we
look for specific details that help us understand how to solve or complete the problem. During
this step we use CUTS to help us remember each step.

C= Circle important information

U= Underline the question or job

T= Write a target sentence using what we underlined

S= Solve- they don’t actually do the math here, but asking themselves what operation will I
be using. They then put the sign of the operation next to the the s to help them remember.

Many times here teachers will want to teach students tricks about looking for key words that
tell them to add, subtract, multiply or divide. However, these short cuts don’t always work
causing students to get the incorrect answer. Plus it doesn’t help students to stop and think
about the problem to make sense of the situation.

Step 3. Students should be going back to actually work out the problem. They should be
rereading the problem and solving. They should be breaking up the problem by rereading
and doing the math. Especially  in more than one step problems they should read a little and
do the math, read a little and do the math until it is completed. During this time students
should be creating an equations, working/drawing out the problem and constantly referring
back to the target sentence to make sure they are answering the question being asked.

Once they have completed it is important for students to check their work. They should again
reread to make sure their answer makes sense, they answered all parts of the questions and
used labels.