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

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.

Want to learn more? Sign up for a free five-week email mini-course full of research-backed strategies to help students make sense of math. Give Cindy Cliche a math word problem, and she can tell you ...

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 ...

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, ...

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 ...

Education professors have shown that a comprehension-based strategy can help English learners improve their math word-problem solving abilities. The approach boosts reading comprehension and problem ...