201: Why Word Problems Feel Hard Even When Students Know the Math

Hey, teacher friends. Welcome back to Math Chat. Mona here and today we're talking about something

that almost every elementary teacher has experienced. Your students are doing fine during the lesson.

They can add, subtract, whatever you're doing. You give them a page of computation in the workbook

and things look okay. Then you have them flip the page to do a word problem. And suddenly everything

falls apart. Students freeze, they guess, they grab the numbers and add them together and hope

something works. And you're still sitting there thinking, wait, I literally just did this.

So what's going on? Is it the reading? Is it attention? Is it effort? Is it the wording of the

problem? Or quietly in the back of your mind, you might even be wondering, is it me?

If that thought has ever crossed your mind, I want you to hear this right away. When students struggle

with word problems, it's rarely because they don't know the math. And that realization can completely

shift how we approach word problems. Welcome to Math Chat podcast where we turn problem solving

into the best part of math class. I'm Mona Eel, a math coach, educator and creator of word problem

workshop here to help you build a student centered math classroom where kids grapple, discuss,

and think like mathematicians. Each week we are going to break down the what, the why, and the how

so that you can take action right now. Try out this week's ideas and then come back next Monday

ready for more. Let's get to it, shall we? Knowing math versus sense making of math. One of the

biggest shifts that we have to make as teachers is understanding the difference between those two

things. Knowing math and making sense of math. Students can learn procedures, they can memorize

steps, and they can get pretty efficient at applying those operations. But word problems ask

something different. Word problems ask students to make sense of a situation. They have to think

about what's happening in the story. They have to notice the relationships between the quantities.

And they have to decide what strategy might make sense. That is completely different.

That type of thinking is way more complex than simply applying a procedure. In fact, here's a line

I want you to hold on to. Word problems don't introduce new math. They reveal how students are

thinking about the math they already know. And that's why word problems can feel so revealing.

Because worksheets can hide gaps in students understanding. But word problems exposes them.

Not in a bad way, but just in an honest way so we can know what our students understand.

So you might be asking yourself, well, why do word problems feel so hard? You probably already

have some ideas of why. When students open a word problem and hesitate, a few things are usually

happening. Sometimes they aren't sure what actually matters in the situation. Sometimes they see

numbers, but they don't see the relationship between the numbers within the context of the problem.

And sometimes they're just unsure on which strategy to even try and use. And sometimes they're

simply used to being told what to do. So because for years in school math, students are often trained

to just follow the instructions, right? Add here, subtract here, use this method, it's better.

But word problems can flip that script and now the student has to decide. And decision-making

is cognitively demanding. So when students feel uncomfortable with word problems, it doesn't

necessarily mean something's wrong. In fact, we feel so strongly about helping our students with

word problems and avoiding struggle that we provide so many supports with word problems.

Maybe there's already a diagram drawn for students to just fill in the numbers. Or there's

a line for the answers that has the units written down. Sometimes when students have to

struggle to figure out what's going on, that is actually when new learning is happening.

It means they're actually thinking. And isn't that what we want in our classrooms?

Because here's the thing, this isn't a student problem or even a teacher failure. This is where I

think most teachers need reassurance. So hear me, girl. Hear me, friend. Hear me, guy. Because when

word problems don't go well, teachers tend to blame themselves. And we think, oh, maybe I didn't

explain it clearly enough. Maybe I didn't model enough. Maybe they're missing a prerequisite skill.

And although those things might be true, the truth is that many of us were never taught to

teach math in a way that invokes students thinking, that inspires students to bring what they

know and can do to a problem. We were taught to show procedures. We were taught to walk students

through the steps. We were taught to get students to an answer. Teaching students to think and

reason and make sense of situations is completely different. It's a different kind of teaching. It

requires listening and patience. It requires letting students try ideas that might not work the

first time. Okay, I'm just pausing there to say, so if word problems sometimes feel harder to

teach, that doesn't mean you're doing it wrong. It often means that you're teaching for understanding.

And that kind of teaching takes practice. I also just want to say we have to let go of perfect

lessons. Another shift that has helped me tremendously is letting go of the idea that a lesson has

to be perfect. When you're teaching for thinking and understanding, lessons are naturally a little

messier. Students are trying out different strategies. And I know that's messy on the paper.

They might say things that surprise you. They might be completely off track.

Sometimes the discussions go somewhere that you didn't expect. And honestly, that uncertainty

is part of responsive teaching. It means we're listening. It means we're adjusting. It means the

classroom is centered on student thinking. But teachers often feel like they have to have everything

figured out ahead of time. And the truth is, confidence in this kind of teaching doesn't come

from perfection. It grows through reflection and support. Trying something. Trying and thinking

about what happened, talking with other educators, and then trying again, that's how this work gets

easier in community. So here's what I want you to hold on to. Even when word problems feel hard.

If word problems have been frustrating you in your classroom, I want you to leave with a few

things to just remember, okay? It's okay if students don't know immediately. The goal isn't speed,

the goal isn't neatness. The goal isn't getting through the pages in the workbook. The goal is

sense-making. Listening matters way more than correcting. It's not your job to correct them.

Thinking matters more than finishing. Ooh, that one's hard, isn't it? An understanding grows

over time. I know you know that one. But sometimes at the end of the lesson, when not everyone has

mastered it, it's hard for us to embrace that. But understanding grows little by little over time.

Word problems aren't something we just have to get through. There's something that we can use to

help students think and develop as mathematicians. And that shift in using word problems to teach math

can completely change your math block. Now, if this conversation has been resonating with you,

it's probably because this work asks us to teach differently than we were taught, right? And that

pushes you. And that kind of shift is hard to do alone. But it's actually exactly why I created

word problem workshop in book form. Because I wanted every teacher to have the manual to do this

daily routine in their classroom. But here's what I also know about teachers. We want to take a

immediate action. And reading a book takes time. So here's what I did. I put all of the book

contents into an online teacher training. And right now, it's on a pretty crazy sale. It's

normally $137. But it's $60 off right now. And it's only $77 until Thursday at noon. Inside the

training, I walk you through the structures that actually help students start solving word problems

to stay with that word problem and grapple with it. And then get to the best part, which is

explaining their thinking. So if word problems have been that thing for you in your math block that

just feels frustrating, this is the training that will really give you the clear starting point.

And you can grab it at monamath.com slash WPW teacher. And I'm going to leave you with one

question to think about the next time a word problem feels hard for your students. What might it

be showing you about their thinking? Rather than what they're missing. Thanks so much for spending

a little bit of your time with me today. I'll see you next week on Math Chat. And if you are thinking

about word problem workshop, now is the time to join. See you inside.