@ColleenK: I think students who learning the model method of solving word problems (Singapore Math) do not have those misconceptions later.

@JackieB: I’ll defer to you on that, as I haven’t seen any h.s. students who’ve /used/ Singapore in previous courses. My problem is that…

…they get to me w/o this understanding. Looking at the cognitive level of what we’re “supposed” to teach – it makes no sense.

@Cassyt: School in NY is using 5th & 6th gr. Singapore to remediate 8th & 9th gr. Could a SM progression be designed for WP?…

…At least to get students beyond the fear of a WP?

@k8nowak: I spend at least a week with 9th graders building WP competence. Here: http://www.box.net/shared/k8psspom9t...

…Not claiming to have written these problems. Most/all copied from various sources. I teach them SM bar models.

@ColleenK: Anecdotal but students in my program who consistently use bar models can translate Alg wp (Dolciani) by gr 7…

…Elem students immersed in a focused by highly visual math program like SM would have the tools to handle HS wp.

Here’s the progression I think helps kids master math facts. First, basic multiplication & division are taught with numbers 1-5 & 10 in second grade. Then in third grade:

Double digit x single digit multiplication,
division,
then division w/remainder.

After those have been taught thoroughly, then multiplying by 6 through 9 is introduced.

The first practice is mult. by 6,
second practice is divide by 6,
third practice is divide by 6 w/ a remainder,
fourth lesson is applying multiplication & division by 6 in word problems.

The sequence follows a similar pattern for 7s, 8,s and 9s.

The word problem is fine, but by the time our kids get to high school, it takes ALOT of time to get them competent with dealing with them. I’ve done it and had to start with square one, super easy problems, and work up to problems at grade 9/10 level. Unfortunately there really isn’t time in the curriculum for that, so if I’m going to do that, I have to leave something else out. They will use every aversion technique ever invented to avoid doing them.

I think there are two factors that cause this. For some students, weak reading comprehension skills. For many students, they had elementary teachers who were afraid of word problems, didn’t know how to teach them, and their curricula let them get away with avoiding them.