It seems as though your child just got a firm grasp on single digit and double digit equations, long division, and percentages when they begin to learn about word problems. They come home with homework and begin to work only to become frustrated after realizing that although word problems look like English; they can't be solved using English. Word problems are a confusing way to look at math but, like many other math skills before, help prepare your child for the way they will hear math problems in the future. In life outside of school, math comes in the form of word problems and you can help your 6th grader learn how to decipher English into math and back again.

First things first, your child must learn to read the entire word problem before beginning. Your child would not write a report on a book after reading only the first chapter. They should also learn that they can't begin to figure out the math equation until they read the entire word problem. A word problem is not always organized into neat equations, they are meant to be confusing and make people think. After reading the problem one or more times, the first thing your child needs to do is figure out what the problem is asking for. If the word problem is asking more than one question, your child should work on figuring one out completely and then go back and figure out the next one.

The next step is to figure out the equation. When trying to find the equation in a word problem, your child must search through the jumble of extra English words and information. First, he or she should determine the most important information and begin to pull it out of the word problem. The second thing to do is change the English into math, marking variables or changing words to symbols. While doing this, your child may run across key words that actually mean one of five simple math equations. Key words that should scream addition are increased by, added to, sum, more than, combined, or totaled. Subtraction can be represented by the phrases decreased by, less than, or a difference of. The different word problem ways to say multiplication are times, multiplied by, product of, or increased/decreased by a factor of. Division is stated more clearly with phrases like out of, ratio of, or a percent of. To figure out what something equals, your child should look for is, are, was, were, will be, gives, yields, or sold for.

Once your child has all the information, they can begin to form an equation. Sometimes drawing a diagram or graph will help clarify the information and make choosing an appropriate equation easier. Another easy way to choose an equation is by looking at the units mentioned in the word problem. If the word problem is talking about variables then the appropriate equation would contain variables. Once your child finds the answer, they may need to turn the answer back into English. They can do this by using the key words used in the word problem. They can also write it in the question that the word problem asked. For example, if the question was 'Shirley had 30 bananas and she divided them equally between the five monkeys at the zoo, how many bananas did each monkey get?' than the answer can be written as 'each monkey received 5 bananas.'

The final thing to remember about word problems is that practicing will help your child build their skill and the more they practice, the easier it will be for them to figure out word problems quickly.

By: math-and-reading-help-for-kids.org