Teaching Struggling Readers to Tackle Math Word Problems, Grades 3-5 (Teaching Resources)

This collection of practical surefire strategies will help every learner in class untangle word problems and approach problem solving with new confidence.

Math word problems can be challenging for many students. Struggling readers have it that much harder. The lessons and activities in this book show how strategies such as visualizing, predicting, reflecting about reading, and other skills typically learned in language arts, provide teachers with practical ways to help every learner untangle word problems and approach problem solving with new confidence. Through cloze practice, picture-problem matching, rearranging scrambled sentences, and more, students will strengthen their words-to-numbers connection and get a better grasp on the structure of word problems―where to start reading first, signal words to look out for, and how to stay focused during multi-step problems. [think this blurb is too long so delete: Every student will benefit from the whole-class lessons, small-group activities, and engaging reproducibles that scaffold students from guided practice to independent performance.

Audrey Trapolsi has taught in New Jersey, New York City, and Madrid, Spain. She attended Bryn Mawr College and Teacher's College, Columbia University. She currently teaches fifth grade, and enjoys painting and drawing. She is the co-author of Reteaching Math: Multiplication & Division, published by Scholastic.