One of the areas where students begin to have a hard time and begin to struggle is in word problems and problem-solving. In our classes, we've tackled this by approaching word problems in the same way we try to understand a story.
In the math resource class, we are teaching our students to think before they solve a problem (what can they predict will happen as we read the first parts of the story), think during (do some calculations based on their understanding of the story problem), and think after (did our predictions match what the problem was asking of us?) There is strong evidence that supports that it’s important to stop and reflect, ask questions, and predict what they think is going to happen next.
They get to meet this perfect storm where reading and math meet by practicing comprehension strategies along with their math computational knowledge. It’s been fun to see my students become excited when solving word problems.