Reading Comprehension Strategies for Mathematics Instruction

For too many students, mathematics has little or no connection to their real-world experience. Previously, I thought that this stemmed primarily from a lack of understanding of mathematical concepts. While that deficiency certainly is an important factor, I am becoming more convinced that students don’t appreciate the power of mathematics largely because of an inability to represent, visualize and model word problems. Research has found that students solve math word problems using one of two general methods: direct translation or problem modeling. Less successful problem solvers usually utilize the direct translation approach. Students identify numbers and key relational terms in the problem statement. Over the years, students have learned that certain key words indicate what computational operation should be used in a word problem. A solution plan is developed by combing the numbers and the key terms. In other words the student directly translates the key proposition in the problem statement into a set of computations. Due to its algorithmic nature, this method has garnered nicknames such as “compute first, think later” and number grabbing (Hegarty, Mayer, & Monk, 1995). Successful problem solvers are more likely to use a problem model approach to solve word problems. In this method, the problem statement is translated into a mental model of the situation described in the problem. This leads to an object-based representation of the problem rather than a proposition based representation of the problem (Hegarty et al., 1995). Consider how these two methods might be used to answer the following mathematics problem: “At Lucky, butter costs 65 cents per stick. This is 2 cents less per stick than butter at Vons. If you need to buy 4 sticks of butter, how much will you pay at Vons?” A student might go through the following steps to incorrectly arrive at an answer using the direct translation method. The student would assign 65 cents to the cost of

Cited: DiGisi, L., & Fleming, D. (2005). Literacy Specialists in Math Class! Closing the Achievement Gap on State Math Assessments. Voices from the Middle, 13, 48-52. Fuentes, P. (1998). Reading Comprehension in Mathematics. The Clearing House, 72, 81-88. Hegarty, M., Mayer, R., & Monk, C. (1995). Comprehension of Arithmetic Word Problems: A Comparison of Successful and Unsuccessful Problem Solvers. Journal of Educational Psychology, 87, 18-32. Kuzniewski, F., Sanders, M., Smith, G., Swanson, S., & Urich, C. (1998) Using Multiple Intelligences to Increase Reading Comprehension in English and Math. Action research project, Saint Xavier University, Chicago, IL. APPENDIX An example of a graphic organizer used to help high school algebra students understand math word problems. (Kuzniewski et al., 1998)