Students often struggle to connect math with the real world. Word problems—a combination of words, numbers, and mathematical operations—can be a perfect vehicle to take abstract numbers off the page.

Word problems try and tell students a story about the math problem in front of them. They are a useful way to connect abstract numbers to concrete situations, so students can learn early on to apply ...

From an early age, children try to make sense of their world by applying context and meaning to certain ideas. But many children also form misconceptions about number concepts and operations that can ...