This story was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news outlet focused on education. The Hechinger Report is a national nonprofit newsroom that reports on one topic: education.

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.

Math word problems require literacy, math, and executive function skills from young children, so mastering them is key to later school success. Credit: Philip Keith for The Hechinger Report The ...

Storytelling and mathematics don’t naturally go together. The best way to spark a discussion about a math topic in a classroom can be unpopular with many students: solving word problems. Word problems ...

In Central Falls, R.I., teachers are trying new strategies that move away from focusing on “key words,” the traditional, simplistic approach that often leads younger students astray CENTRAL FALLS, R.I ...