This project investigates primary 4 children's difficulties when solving word problems. It consists of an exploratory study examining the feasibility of using task-based interviews in the school setting; and a main study divided into three phases. The tasks set to the children are selected/adapted word problems from SPNG textbook Stage 2. Phase 1 investigates the difficulties of forty "average" primary 4 children from five different schools. Task-based interviews are used in conjunction with an error analysis. Phase 2 makes structural alterations to six of the most difficult Phase 1 word problems to investigate more closely the possible cause of difficulty. These altered word problems are re-presented to the Phase 1 sample. The original problems are not re-presented to this sample as the task-based interviews allowed for considerable practice of these original problems. Phase 3 took place a year later than Phase 2 and presents the structurally altered word problems alongside the original problems to a different, but similar sample. This sample consists of 126 children from the five schools participating during Phase 1/2. It is suggested that the findings do not support the view that a small unvarying number of variables consistently affect problem difficulty. Rather the sources of difficulty are likely to stem from a number of highly complex interacting sources; and the language itself need not be the block it sometimes appears to be. Informal strategies were evidently important for a significant minority of children, particularly in relation to subtraction problems. This seems well worth investigating further. The use of these strategies suggested that the language of the word problem could be understood when the child could link it to his/her informal strategies. Also, given simpler numbers, the semantic implications of the problem could often be mastered.

Thesis (M.S.)--Kutztown University, 1988. / Source: Masters Abstracts International, Volume: 45-06, page: 2811. Abstract precedes title page. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 71-78).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2007. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, San Diego, 2006. / Title from first page of PDF file (viewed September 21, 2006). Available via ProQuest Digital Dissertations. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (p. 86-90).

The main object of my final work is creating worksheets for teaching ?Word problems? with the interactive whiteboard and using ICT (Information and Communication Technology) at a selected school. The thesis is divided into two parts, a theoretical and a practical part. The first part deals with the use of ICT and interactive whiteboards in teaching mathematics. I also mention the concept of a textbook, interactive textbook and my own comparing textbooks. The second part of my thesis contains a workbook I have prepared to my own support teaching on the interactive whiteboard this application and individual examples. Then I occupy myself with application worksheets in teaching pupils in the 9th year of primary school. In conclusion I gave results and of knowledge that I acquired during my teaching.

This research sought to investigate the problems experienced in the interpretation of word problems by senior secondary school learners, in particular to see how the language used in the articulation of word problems affects the interpretation. The study was conducted in a school in the Oshikoto region of Namibia, a school located in a semi-rural area of Namibia, and selected owing to the accessibility of the required participants. The research was located within an interpretive paradigm focusing on a study sample of 40 learners from a specified class in the selected school. Data were collected through written tests and a semi-structured interview based on written tests, and a comprehensive descriptive analysis of test results was prepared. The findings of the study indicate that the language in which the word problem was articulated did not make a difference. The performance in both English and Oshindonga tests was almost the same. The findings also indicate that vocabulary, syntactic interpretation, semantic relationships, algebraic skills, and practical sense making in relation to real-life are all important for the successful interpretation and solving of word problems. In view of these findings, the study has provided valuable insights into aspects of the teacher education curriculum that need to be revisited in order to improve the training of teachers In teaching word problems.

The aim of my work is to prove continuity of solving word problems in math within the context of reading and mathematical literacy. Ten word problems will be created with different mathematical content, with longer task for challenging reading literacy. For all problems will be stated the correct solution. In the practical part, the problems will be assigned to solve to selected pupils at selected schools. The results of their solution will then be analysed and published.

Språket har en stor betydelse för förståelsen av delar av matematiken. Det finns flera faktorer i matematiken som kan vara utmanande för elever som läser svenska som andraspråk. En av dem är att gå från ett vardagsspråk till ett matematikspråk då ord som rymmer, volym och udda är ord som har olika betydelse beroende på kontext. De elever som inte behärskar matematikspråket fullt ut får det svårare att lösa textuppgifter i matematiken. Syftet har därför varit att, genom observationer och intervjuer, ta reda på vilka strategier elever som läser svenska som andraspråk använder när de löser textuppgifter i matematik. Syftet var även att ta reda på vad som kan ligga bakom de val eleverna gör utifrån de dolda regler som kan finnas i klassrummet och det didaktiska kontraktet. Åtta strategier framkom där fyra strategier kunde kopplas till de dolda reglerna eller det didaktiska kontraktet. Två strategier kunde förklaras med övriga orsaker. Slutsats som kan dras är att eleverna använder sig av flera strategier och att det kan vara av värde att medvetandegöra hur regler och det didaktiska kontraktet kan påverka elevernas strategival. / Language has a big impact on how we understand some parts in the subject of mathematics. Thera are several factors in mathematics that can be challenging for second language students. One of these factors is to go from everyday language to a mathematic language because there are words that have different meaning depending on the context they are in. It is more challenging for students, who do not fully understand the mathematic language, to solve word problems in mathematics. The purpose of this study was therefore, through observations and interviews, to find out what strategies second language students use to solve word problems in mathematics. It was also to find out what lies behind their choices. This connected to the hidden rules that can exist in a classroom and the didactical contract. Eight strategies where found and four of them could be connected to the hidden rules or the didactical contract. Two strategies where explained with other reasons. Conclusions are that students use several strategies to solve word problems and that there in value in realizing how the hidden rules and the didactical contact can have an impact on student choices.

Syftet med studien är att undersöka hur andraspråkselever kan ges stöd för att förstå och skapa mening i matematiska textuppgifter. Studien är utförd som en systematisk litteraturstudie. Sammanlagt 59 studier ligger till grund för analysen. Resultatet visar att språkfärdigheter och läsförståelse har betydelse för andraspråkselevers möjligheter att lyckas med textuppgifter, vilket gör språkutvecklande arbete viktigt i matematik. Eleverna har i många fall lättare att lösa uppgifterna på sitt förstaspråk, men texten i uppgifterna kan göras mer tillgänglig genom att se över formuleringar och ordval. Undervisning som syftar till att lära eleverna läsa och lösa textuppgifter verkar ge resultat. Litteraturstudien pekar på att även kontexten är viktig. När elever arbetar med textuppgifter är det troligt att de tar hjälp av båda sina språk i tankeprocessen. Det gör att båda språken kan ses som en resurs. / The purpose of this study is to investigate in which ways multilingual students can be supported to understand and make meaning of mathematical word problems. The study is carried out in the form of a systematic review, including 59 studies. The results show that language skills and reading proficiency are important to multilingual students chances to succeed with word problems. That makes it important to adress those issues during mathematics lessons. In many cases students benefit from working with word problems in their first language, but the problem texts can be made more easily comprehensible if they are written in a less complex language. Instruction with the specific aim to teach students how to read and solve word problems seems to be useful. The review shows that the context in word problems also is significant. Students working on word problems are likely to use both their langugages in the cognitive process. That means that both languages may be considered to be resources in the classroom.

Purpose: This study examined the relationship between arithmetic word problem solving skill in first graders and 1) their oral language skill, 2) their nonverbal understanding of mathematical sets, and 3) rewording and gesture scaffolds designed to help the children access both the linguistic and the nonverbal content of Compare 6 word problems. Method: Two groups of first graders (15 with good oral language skill and 15 with low oral language skill) solved a matched set of verbal and nonverbal arithmetic problems, followed by three types of Compare word problems. Twenty first graders with low oral language skill (9 with low normal language (LN) and 11 with a diagnosis of language impairment (LI)) then solved orally-presented Compare 6 word problems under 4 scaffold conditions: 1) traditional wording, 2) traditional wording + gesture, 3) rewording, and 4) rewording + gesture. Results: Children with low oral language skill had greater difficulty solving orally-presented arithmetic word problems than their peers with good language skill, but performed comparably on a nonverbal arithmetic task. Using proportion of problems solved correctly, rewording Compare 6 word problems was facilitative for the LN group but not for the LI group. Changing the problem wording from a Compare 6 to a Compare 3, by using `more than' instead of `fewer than' and by eliminating pronoun anaphora, resulted in comparable performance to rewording that also included a rationale, optional verbs and placing the question first. The gesture scaffold was marginally significant for both groups. Conclusions: The LI group did not benefit from implicitly-presented rewording or gesture scaffolds; the LN group did benefit from the rewording scaffold. The gesture scaffold was marginally facilitative despite the finding that children with low oral language skill were able to access nonverbal information in a nonverbal arithmetic task. Empirical and anecdotal evidence suggested that, for a number of these children, rewording and gesture scaffolds altered their mental model of the word problem structure. This altered representation resulted in the use of different solution strategies. The new strategies, however, were not always correct. Implications for classroom intervention and suggestions for future research are discussed.