5 Strategies Working with struggling students is difficult.
Nonetheless, one of
to Help Struggling
Math Learners
By: Dr. Jeff Todd
PRIOR TO IMPLEMENTING STRATEGIES
Get to know your struggling students and engage them about
their stories. How did they get to where they are? How do they
feel about being behind in math? Are they aware exactly how
far behind they are? Are they willing to take a risk again, given
that risk-taking might not have worked out for them in the past?
1. Provide Explicit Instruction for Strugging Students
I am a huge advocate for discovery-based learning in math. I
want students to be able to explore rich contextual situations
in the math classroom, and I believe that every student should
be exposed to this kind of classroom.
If this type of instruction does not work for chronically
struggling students, then they will need explicit instruction in
how to solve the target problems step by step.
I believe struggling students should be exposed to experiential
learning, but they may get lost without follow-up. Explicit
instruction can be provided in intervention classes or by using
different differentiation strategies in the main classroom.
2. Provide Rich Contexts in the Math Classroom
Having just championed the need for explicit instruction,
which should follow exploratory or discovery activities in the
math classroom, I now want to emphasize the importance of
context-rich activities.
Struggling students need to participate in these kinds of
activities so that they can see and hear proficient math
reasoning from their peers.
Experiencing rich mathematical contexts along with their
more proficient peers exposes struggling students to
their classmates’ proficient problem solving strategies and
verbalization of proficient peer thought processes.
Observing the way their more proficient peers use prior
knowledge to solve current challenges and persevere in
problem solving will help struggling students to improve their
approach to engaging with rich contextual problems.
3. Use Bar Modeling Representations to Decode
Word Problems
It is not uncommon for struggling math students to also be
struggling readers.
These students usually need explicit instruction in the reading
of word problems, understanding their underlying structure,
choosing operations to solve the problem, and strategies to
represent the word problem.
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the signs of a great math teacher is to be able to reach students no
matter what level they are at: struggling, average, or superstar.
Teachers often reflect and strategize ways to help students who
are ready to re-engage in their academic progress after years of
failure. The research literature suggests several strategies that work
consistently for struggling students.
My go-to representational strategy for arithmetic word
problems is bar modeling, which is the kind of representation
used in Singapore Math. I find that when students understand
this modeling strategy, it helps them interpret word problems
and choose an operation.
When students move from the word problem to a bar model,
and then choose an operation to write an expression or
equation, they are sharpening their reading skills. Using
the models for addition and subtraction problems versus.
multiplication and division problems can help them
conceptualize the problem.
4. Practice Basic Facts
Struggling students should spend a few minutes every day
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working on their arithmetic basic facts. Ten minutes a day in
homeroom, at the end of class, or as a station in a series of
math activities will help them build speed and confidence.
There are many excellent applications and web tools available.
If you have access to technology for this, use it! If your district
provides a subscription-based service, use it; however, if it
doesn’t, there are free online apps for basic facts.
If you don’t have technology available, flash cards and partners
will also do the job!
5. Use Mnemonics
In my building this year, we conducted a survey of special
education students who had made large gains in state
assessments. We asked them what they believed had helped
them succeed.
One clear answer was that their teachers had provided them
with strategies.
Very often, students named a strategy that had an acronym. Here
are some problem-solving strategies you might want to consider
using with your students: RIDE, TINS, STAR, and FAST DRAW.
These problem-solving strategies, along with the “infamous”
PEMDAS, can be an easy way for students to latch onto a
problem and come up with a solution.
BONUS: Other Ways to Help Struggling Students
Here are a few final quick ideas that help students who
struggle in math
• have them verbalize their problem solving process to
help resist impulsive behaviors when solving problems
• provide out-of-class opportunities for help
• arrange for cross-age peer tutoring