Teachers Network
Translate Translate English to Chinese Translate English to French
  Translate English to German Translate English to Italian Translate English to Japan
  Translate English to Korean Russian Translate English to Spanish
Lesson Plan Search
Our Lesson Plans
TeachNet Curriculum Units
Classroom Specials
Popular Teacher Designed Activities
TeachNet NYC Directory of Lesson Plans TeachNet NYC Dirctory of Lesson Plans

VIDEOS FOR TEACHERS
RESOURCES
Teachers Network Leadership Institute
How-To Articles
Videos About Teaching
Effective Teachers Website
Lesson Plans
TeachNet Curriculum Units
Classroom Specials
Teacher Research
For NYC Teachers
For New Teachers
HOW-TO ARTICLES
TEACHER RESEARCH
LINKS

GRANT WINNERS
TeachNet Grant:
Lesson Plans
2010
TeachNet Grant Winners
2009
TeachNet Grant Winners
Adaptor Grant Winners
2008
TeachNet Grant Winners
Adaptor Grant Winners
2007
TeachNet Grant Winners
Adaptor Grant Winners
Other Grant Winners
Power-to-Learn
Math and Science Learning
Ready-Set-Tech
Impact II
Grant Resources
Grant How-To's
Free Resources for Teachers
ABOUT
Our Mission
Funders
   Pacesetters
   Benefactors
   Donors
   Sponsors
   Contributors
   Friends
Press
   Articles
   Press Releases
Awards
   Cine
   Silver Reel
   2002 Educational Publishers Award

Sitemap

NYC Helpline: How To: Teach Math
Helping English Language Learners Tackle Math Word Problems in First and Second Grade
Sarah Picard

As a former second grade teacher, I took special care when planning for lessons that involved word problems in mathematics. As a teacher of several English Language Learners, I wanted to make sure they were able to comprehend the questions they were asked, and able to apply their computational skills to each problem solving situation. Here are a few tips that may also work for your students.

First, I began by simply asking more questions during the school day that used words like, more than, less than, and how many. Here are a few examples.

  • “How many students are absent today?”
  • “How many more children are absent today than yesterday?”
  • “We had 24 pencils in the pencil jar, now there are only 17. How many did we lose?”

These every day problems were part of many classrooms’ daily routines (in morning meeting, or perhaps in Ten Minute Math, a separate time in the day to give additional problem solving time). Infusing this language into the classroom will help the children recognize the meaning of the words when they see them in a different setting, such as math workshop.

It was also important for the children to be exposed to questions. Much of the text they were learning to read was written in declarative sentences. This exposure to questions was vital for their comprehension.

Second, we took every opportunity to explore the idea of change. Most word problems involve some sort of change (a person is given a certain amount of something and then some are taken away; a child pays money for an item and gets some of the money back, etc). The children and I took time to write and talk about change. Here are a few examples.

  • If a new student came to the class, we could write a word problem to show how the total number of students in the class changed.
  • As children returned permission slips for field trips, we worked through a word problem to find out how many more permission slips we needed to go on the trip.

Third, we used the balanced literacy component, Shared Reading, to study some of the problems we were asked. We read problems carefully, demonstrating reading and rereading for comprehension. The rereading proved to be the most important strategy to highlight. Many of the students read the problem once and then felt like giving up. After we practiced rereading several times, they began to feel more confident in their ability to comprehend the situation described in the story problem. Here are a couple of things we did to help with the comprehension.

  • The students acted out the problems to show the change.
  • The students used manipulatives to show change, actually moving the objects to help solve the problem.

These are simple, effective ways to expose math word problems to young learners.

 

Come across an outdated link?
Please visit The Wayback Machine to find what you are looking for.

 

Journey Back to the Great Before