How can I help my dd improve in solving word problems?

[Peggy in Ks]

Does it come with practice?

Thanks,

Peggy

[NicksMama-Zack's Mama Too]

When approaching word problems, I always ask the student, "what do you know?" Then, I ask them "what is the unknown or what is the question?" Have them underline the question for reinforcement.

 

We're Singapore Math folks, so we draw a few pictures/models throughout the process.

 

 

hth

[Musicmom]

Hi Peggy,

 

Yes, it does come with practice, but it's practice in THINKING. That's the main thing to learn in solving word problems--to think and reason your way through them. I always had brain-freeze in elementary school and junior high when I was faced with word problems--they always seemed like that joke: if a train leaves Chicago at 10:00 am traveling 55 mph and another train leaves New York at 11:30 traveling 65 mph, what time will the baseball game in Atlanta begin?? :confused: I could never figure out how to "plug in" the stuff I'd learned by rote.

 

Finally, now that I've gone through math again with my kids (and especially thanks to Singapore math), I have learned to approach word problems by thinking through them. As NicksMama above suggested, I always ask myself, "what do we know..." Have your daughter ask herself this question and write down, in mathematical terms, what she knows--both from what's given in the problem and from general knowledge (things like distance = rate x time). Then she should ask herself, "what do we need to find out? What is being asked for? What other information do I need to find out in order to get there? How can I find it from what I already have?" I also have found that drawing pictures and diagrams along the way is helpful too. Approach it like a puzzle.

 

As you work on word problems, I would encourage you to use problems that really do require thought, such as those in Singapore, rather than those that are very straightforward (which is what you often find in American programs, particularly the ones that use a spiralling approach.) It will be slow going at first, but this will develop the necessary thinking skills better. Sorry I don't have a good recommendation for sources for such problems other than Singapore, which is what I've used for this. Perhaps others know of good resources and will speak up.

 

Hope this helps (at least somewhat!)

[KAR120C]

You might want to look back at the word problems from some pretty early grades, but I bet you'd move through them fast. And I think they're available at Barnes and Noble now (not the original edition, but what I saw of them looked pretty close to what we used).

 

Once you get the hang of word problems in general and the thinking-through that they require, there are types. Like Musicmom said, distance rate and time questions always have those three things, and if you only have two of them (rate and time, or distance and time, or rate and distance) you can always figure out the third. And they frequently have standard "tricks" - like you can't always directly average two rates, but you can use the distances and times to work out the total distances and times and calculate the average rate from that. When you get into distance-rate-time problems that comes up over and over and over.

 

There are lots of patterns like that, which with understanding and practice get to be easy to spot. And once you recognize the type of problem and know the pattern, you have a great big flashing arrow pointing at where to attack it. :)

[Susan C.]

First kid, ds, did terrible with word problems in Video Text. Resolved with BJU Algebra 2. Second kid, dd, did BJU Algebra 1. No problem with word problems. So, BJU is our answer. They give charts and teach them how to set the problems up. Fool proof for us.

[SW in IL]

My daugther (public schooled) could not figure out word problems no matter what we did. Making lists of what "we" already knew, the information given... diagrams, charts, pictures, manipulatives... Nothing seemed to help. That even went for "easy" word problems in elementary grade math classes. Her older step sister once told her that world problems were impossible and apparently she took that piece of sage advice a bit too far. This was an otherwise intelligent young lady.

 

My son can figure out word problems easier than those written out in problem format but he does have a bit of trouble converting a problem from word to number. We're still doing catch-up (basic operations) so I'm not sure how it'll play out in the more advanced math coursesm, but we still use the same basics with him... Figure out what you know and what you need to know, then go from there.

 

Not much help here, I guess.

 

Sue

[Nan in Mass]

-Change the problem to math language. (If it says Jo is half the age of Mary but three years older than Sue, write J = M/2 and J = S+3)

-What are the knowns? (List them, like rate = 5 mi/h )

-What are the unknowns? (List them with a question mark, like time = ? )

-What general formulas do I know that connects the knowns to the unknowns? (Like rate x time = distance. Sometimes, you have to go through several of these in order to get from one to the other. For example, you might have to do some work to find the distance. If you don't know or don't remember, look at the units for hints: 5 miles per hour tells you that 5 = miles divided by hours.) Or what has the problem told me about the relationship of some of these things to others? (Mary drives twice as fast as Jo.)

-Convert all your terms so the units are uniform. (Convert all the minutes to hours for example so they match your rate, which is in miles per hour.)

-Manipulate your formulas around so the unknowns are on the left had side of the formula and the knowns are on the right hand side. (For example, if time is your unknown, change rate x time = distance to time = distance divided by rate.)

-Put the formulas in order to go from knowns to unknowns.

-Plug the knowns into the formulas and find the unknowns.

 

Remember strategies like guess and check, simplify the problem, use a table and look for a pattern, think of a related problem, and use a diagram or model. (This last list is copied from the front of the Singapore book.)

 

HTH

-Nan

Edited December 16, 2009 by Nan in Mass

[Peggy in Ks]

I understand them better now though, but I still don't like them! I will try some of these ideas.

Thanks!

[Musicmom]

Nan's suggestions above are excellent!!! That's kind of what I was getting at, only she spelled it all out so much more clearly. Thank you, Nan!! :001_smile: