The 5 W’s Word Problem Solving Method

If you’ve taught math for any length of time, you keep hearing that math needs to be taught as if it is a foreign language.  That requires teaching vocabulary, structure, and interpretation.  Unfortunately, when I went to school for my teaching credentials, they never discussed that or even the idea of teaching students to do word problems as if you are teaching a form of reading comprehension.

One year, I decided to teach students to solve word problems as if they were magazine or newspaper articles.  For each problem, I had students identify who was involved, what did they do, how did they do it, why did they do it, where were they, when did they do it, before they looked at the question.  This actually had students slow down and really read the problem before they tried to solve it.

Take this word problem - 

“You are installing rain gutters across the back of your house.  The directions say that the gutters should decline ¼ inch every four feet of the lateral run. The gutters will be spanning thirty-seven feet.  How much lower than the starting point should the lower end of the gutter be?

So students would answer this way.

1.  Who - you are doing it.

2. What - you are installing rain gutters.

3. Why - It doesn’t say but it could be because you need to replace the current ones.

4. Where - The back of the house.

5. When - not given.

6. How - by hanging them so they decline ¼ inch every four feet.

7. How Long - for 37 feet.

After identifying the who, what, where, why, and how, I have students define words they might not know such as decline, lateral run.  

Question Asked?  How much lower than the starting point should the lower end of the gutter be?

Finally - what mathematical concept should I use to solve this problem?  In this case it, I’d use proportion.  ¼ / 4 = x/37.

When students have a procedure like this, they have to take time to slow down, really read the problem, identify important information before they even try to solve it.  Tomorrow, I’ll be sharing my “Kentucky Fried Chicken Wings” Method of doing word problems. It is similar and the students did pretty well with it.  Let me know what you think, I’d love to hear.  Have a great day.