Promoting word problem solving performance among students with mathematics difficulties: The role of strategy instruction that primes the problem structure

The purpose of this chapter is to describe research on word problem solving interventions for improving the mathematics learning of students with mathematics difficulties (MD). Word problems represent “the most common form of problem solving” (Jonassen, 2003, p. 267) in school mathematics curricula. According to Depaepe, De Corte, and Verschaffel (2010), word problems are “typically composed of a mathematics structure embedded in a more or less realistic context” (p. 152). Solving word problems involves understanding the language and factual information to define the problem situation, constructing an adequate representation of the problem situation using the relevant elements and relations among quantities, planning how to solve the problem, executing the plan, and interpreting the appropriateness and reasonableness of the outcome in relation to the original problem situation (Depaepe et al., 2010; Mayer & Hegarty, 1996). Word problems are considerably more challenging to solve than no-context problems for many students with MD who not only have difficulties with the abstract formal structures of mathematics, but also have difficulties with the language of mathematics (Andersson, 2008; Fuchs et al., 2010).