Students often struggle to connect math with the real world. Word problems—a combination of words, numbers, and mathematical operations—can be a perfect vehicle to take abstract numbers off the page.

Organizational strategies that help students break complex word problems into manageable chunks may be the key to solving them, according to a 2025 study.

Researchers tested a research-based intervention with English learners with math difficulty. The intervention proved to boost comprehension and help students synthesize and visualize information, ...

Word problems try and tell students a story about the math problem in front of them. They are a useful way to connect abstract numbers to concrete situations, so students can learn early on to apply ...

Este artículo está disponible en español. Léelo en español. When Nicole Thompson teaches a math word problem to her fourth grade class in Pajaro Valley Unified, she has the class read it over three ...

Working memory is like a mental chalkboard we use to store temporary information while executing other tasks. Scientists worked with more than 200 elementary students to test their working memory, ...

Segue Institute for Learning teacher Cassandra Santiago introduces a lesson on word problems to her first graders one spring afternoon. Credit: Phillip Keith for The Hechinger Report The Hechinger ...

We like to think that we're pretty good at math, especially after years of schooling. But every once in a while, a simple third-grade math problem manages to trip us up and make us question our ...

You’ve no doubt seen some version of this viral math problem making the rounds on Facebook, Reddit or X (though we’ve given ...

Join our daily and weekly newsletters for the latest updates and exclusive content on industry-leading AI coverage. Learn More Students and STEM researchers of the world, rejoice! Particularly if you ...