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.

Segue Institute for Learning teacher Cassandra Santiago introduces a lesson on word problems to her first graders one spring afternoon. Credit: Phillip Keith for The Hechinger Report The Hechinger ...

Organizational strategies that help students break complex word problems into manageable chunks may be the key to solving them, according to a 2025 study.

Students get to share their favorite family recipes and practice their problem-solving strategies in this engaging math project.

An acquaintance worked for a small-town bike shop, and a friend told him — in confidence — that a competing shop would be opening soon. He was torn. As most of us do, he reflexively nodded his head ...