Goals - Part 5

My goals in helping children with arithmetic are simple. I want them

to be good at solving all different types of word problems,
to like solving word problems,
to understand the problem solving methods (shortcuts) that they use and
to be able to communicate their reasoning to others.

5. What Does It Mean To Be Good At Solving Word Problems?

As a first step, certainly by the time they turn 7 years old, children should have the ability to solve each of the 12 types of word problems by making the appropriate model and counting.

As 7- and 8-year olds, they should grow in their ability to solve word problems

using more and more shortcuts,
using those shortcuts more and more fluently, and
using shortcuts that are more and more effective in the context of the problems that they are trying to solve.

In this video Eva makes a novel argument to solve a subtraction problem. Her thinking is excellent, but hardly fluent.

In this video Rose starts to solve a multiplication problem using one shortcut – but then realizes that she has a more effective method.

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