What Does Math Really Mean?

Michaela D. Rich
University of South Florida

Background
In my elementary years, math was always my strong suit. I remember bringing home
math work from school and asking my mom to put it all over the fridge. It made me so proud. Up
until 6th grade I only liked math because I was so good at it. When I got to 6th grade, my math
teacher, Mr. Gordon, gave everyone in the class a weekly math homework sheet called,
Sunshine Math. The last couple questions, on this worksheet would always be challenging
questions that really made you think. One time it was a sodoku puzzle. Another time the
questions asked us to draw a box with an X inside of it without lifting our pencil from the paper
and without overlapping already drawn lines. I remember it took me all week to figure it out but
when I did, boy was I happy! This was the year that math became fun for me and left me desiring
more of a challenge.
The skills followed me all throughout high school and college. I continue to leap
at any opportunity that presents itself in a mathematical context. I constantly challenge myself to
figure out math problems in my head, ranging from percentage sales in department stores to
splitting a restaurant bill five ways with my friends. I am currently a full-time intern in my last
year at the University of South Florida in the K-6 Elementary Education program. Hogwarts
Elementary is where I have done my Level 1, Level II, and Level III internships. My school is
located at the back of a very nice housing community in Land O Lakes. I have been in a first
grade classroom, a third grade classroom, and a second grade classroom. I am doing my final
internship in the second grade classroom with 21 wonderful students.
My collaborating teacher is Mrs. Wallace and she helps me throughout every aspect of
teaching imaginable. My collaborating teacher and I have noticed that all of the students need
assistance in some academic areas, but it is on a day-to-day basis and they may not need it

consistently. While the students need help across multiple subject areas, math was the subject
where the small group instruction happened the least. Now that we have started multi-step word
problems and balancing equations, it is now the subject where many of the students need the
most support in.
The groups of students that I work with everyday will be changing, depending on their
level of understanding during whole-group instruction. For example, something I noticed is the
connection of reading levels to the ability to analyze the word problems. Students with higher
reading levels can read the problem to themselves a couple times and understand what to do.
Other students with lower reading levels struggle pulling the key information and determining
how to solve on their own. These students either require small group instruction or guided
questions when they raise their hand. Another situation I noticed is a few students sit and do
nothing with their math worksheets for 30 minutes unless I redirect them. When asking them
why they are not working, they respond with, I just dont understand how to know what to do.
One student in particular comes to mind because he consistently gets nothing done. His name is
Nolan (pseudonym).
Nolans father wants him to become more independent and have him try to do his
homework on his own while his mother is constantly helping and/or doing his homework for
him. Something he always says during classwork is, Why do I always have to do everything? I
am sure he says this with his parents and that could be why his mother does the work for him.
Something else I have noticed during classwork is that he needs constant redirection back to his
work because he is often daydreaming or distracted by something on the wall. Every step of his
work needs to be walked through with him in a one-on-one setting in order for him to have a
chance of keeping up with the class. When I am teaching the whole class and doing an activity

with them through the doc cam, he never finishes because I cannot be there to redirect his focus
constantly. These behaviors have put him behind in math. Even though he is on a second grade
reading level according to the Independent Reading Level Assessment (2016), he cannot
comprehend what the word problem is asking, nor can he make sense of the information given to
him. Nolan does not recognize that there can be more than one step in a word problem and
assumes he needs to add whatever numbers he sees and moves on to the next problem.
Since math has always been my favorite subject and has come relatively quickly to me, I
hate to see my students struggle with it. I want them to feel as though I did throughout school,
like there was not a math problem that could ever beat me. After all, it is a fairly black and white
subject. 1+1 will always be 2, and 2x4 will always be 8. However, when it comes to word
problems it is not always black and white, and that is where I am seeing a few of my students
struggling. I want them to be able to conceptualize what the problem is asking them through
pictures or acting out the scenario. I have chosen to work with a large variety of students on a
need basis who are misunderstanding the difference between a one-step and a multi-step word
problem, and how to go about solving. They also are having trouble balancing equations, which
is something they get introduced to very briefly in preparation for the next math unit.
The purpose of my inquiry is to help all my students make sense of math and not see it
only as symbols and numbers. My students need to learn to visualize what is happening and
relate it to real-life objects. For example, the equal sign does not mean to just solve. The equal
sign means that on both sides of that sign, the numbers are equal. It also means the equation is
balanced. Peake, Jimenez, Rodriguez, Bisschop, & Villarroel (2015) state that in order for a
student to solve an arithmetic word problem, they must be able to conceptualize a model or
representation of the problem that allows them to recognize the right operation to solve correctly.

I feel that this is where my students are having problems and if it were not for this issue, they
would be succeeding. I hope to find strategies that work for them to make sense of math and its
operations and to keep them on track with the rest of the class.
Wondering
With this purpose, I wondered, How can I help students understand math concepts as
opposed to operations?
Literature Connections
To learn more about my wondering I consulted the literature by searching for journals
using the following key words: math, concepts, elementary, word problems,
operations, 3-digit addition strategies, 3-digit subtraction strategies, and thinking. I used
different combinations of these key words and found six useful articles through the University of
South Florida library that inform me about my inquiry in their own ways. I discovered a few
strategies that could be useful for word problems, which is crucial for my students because they
are having the most trouble with them. I also found strategies for the future if my students
struggle when we learn 3-digit addition and subtraction. Another point that was brought to my
attention is the correlation between reading level and being able to comprehend what the word
problem is asking the student. If the student is on a reading level that is below what is expected
to read the word problem, they will just look for numbers and certain words (more, less, took
away, gave) to tell them what to do. When there is more than one step involved in the problem,
these students will most likely miss it. We will also be using word problems when moving on to
3-digit computation so I will apply the strategies I find as I see necessary.
Cheng (2015) wrote an article about decoding errors being made in arithmetic word
problems for third grade students. This article discusses the importance of teaching the structure

of a word problem before lettings the students try to solve to avoid common errors. According to
Cheng (2015) there are two models of word problems, the comparison model and the part-whole
model. The comparison model uses a large rectangle for the larger quantity and a smaller
rectangle for a smaller quantity. The rectangles are next to each other so the difference can be
recognized. The part-whole model has two rectangles right next to each other, each labeled part.
Then a bracket goes above both rectangles and is labeled whole. This way, students can see a
concrete example of the structure instead of reading word problems and just looking for key
words and numbers.
Peake et al (2015) tested children on their ability to read a short story and complete a
word problem. They conducted this study to determine how much the students syntactic
awareness affects their ability to solve word problems, and how students with learning
disabilities compare to students without. Their results were that students with learning disabilities
preformed lower than students without. Also, if students scored low on the reading portion, they
also scored low on the word problem portion. If they scored high on the reading, then they also
scored high on the word problem.
Castro-Martinez & Frias-Zorilla (2013) present four different ways to focus on word
problems. They state that the first focus is on conceptual structures to represent and solve word
problems. This requires the student to pull out important information and organize it in a way
that makes sense to them in order for them to solve. The second focus is using a problem-solving
stance to view word problems. The third focus is analyzing the performance. Finally, the fourth
focus is based on the modeling approach.
Hart (1996) talks about introducing word problems that have familiar names and
experiences in them so that students can better picture what is happening in the word problem.

Students biggest difficulty when it comes to word problems is creating a mental image of what is
happening and fully understanding what the question and answer mean. The author conducts a
study on personalized word problem effectiveness in a sixth grade class. Her results were that
students enjoyed personalized word problems better and they were more successful with them
and their solutions.
Pareto, Haake, Lindstrom, Sjoden, & Gulz (2012) introduce a mathematical game that
can be evaluated based on the students conceptual understanding and their attitude towards
math. In the game, students are using concrete objects to add and subtract two-digit numbers.
They have a one object per ten, and one object per one. So, if they have 3 blocks in the tens
column and 9 blocks in the ones column, their total would be 39. The game allows for
competition and collaboration so that the students can work together to get better and then
continue playing against another student.
A common theme across the literature is to make the word problems as straight forward
and simple as possible. Students should not be confused about who Anne is and why she has 37
sweatshirts. Students can better focus if the word problems are worded so they are most relevant
to their lives at school. Using real situations will allow them to focus more on what operation
should be done rather than the content and descriptions of a strange person and their strange
amount of objects. Another common idea is making sure that word problems are worded in a
way as to not trick students. I must pay attention to the reading levels of my class and cater the
word problems so that everyone has a fair chance of understanding.
Thus, the actions I decided to take based on the literature were to incorporate familiar
names and scenarios into word problems to make them easier to focus on. My students were
always focused on all of the tiny details of a word problem, such as who is the problem talking

about and what object are they discussing. I also considered my students individual reading
levels and ensured that the word problems were not too complex and tricky with their wording,
and were more straightforward. When word problems are worded to trick the students, their
reading skills are being tested and their math skills are no longer being tested. I incorporated the
comparison model and the part-whole model that Cheng (2015) discussed and this helped my
students to picture the word problem with a concrete visual, much like in first grade when they
were learning simple addition and subtraction with counters and cubes.