Help Students Solve Math Word Problems

Word problems can be incredibly tricky for students, but they are super important to master, not only because of state testing, but the real world math we use every day is full of word problems. Very rarely am I given a sheet of math problems to solve, but instead I am faced with problems such as how much fencing should I buy, or if this product is 35% off, how much am I saving?

Here is one of the strategies I use to help my students solve word problems.  Your students will love making a mess with math!

Help Students Solve Math Word Problems

Do you ever notice that your students approach word problems by barely reading the problem and instead plucking out the numbers and performing some random operation on them without really THINKING about the problem?  Yeah, I did too!

Luckily, I started using the MESS problem solving strategy, and it was a GAME CHANGER with my students.  They started actually reading the problem, and modeling the problem BEFORE they started solving. 

Read the Problem

Before we even start the strategy, the students need to read the problem.  It is a word problem for a reason, the story means something and helps us to see what the problem is asking us to do.

You will have to model this with students multiple times before they begin to do this on their own.  I read EVERY problem out loud with my students when we begin this process.

Once we have read the problem, I ask them to find the sentence where the question is being asked.

In the problem above, which is from my 4th Grade Math Journal resource, the question asks "How many packages of pencils does the school secretary need to order?" Looking even closer, the problem tells us to round to the greatest place to solve.

If my students are REALLY struggling with word problems, I will often scaffold at this point by having them write a sentence stem in their graphic organizer that says, "The secretary needs to order ___ packages of pencils."

Once we know what our problem is asking, we are ready to make a MESS!

MESS Problem Solving Strategy

Mess is an acronym to help the students remember the steps for this problem solving strategy.

Model: Students draw a model of the problem.

Equation: Students write an equation to help them solve the problem.

Solve: Students solve the problem.

Sentence: Students write a sentence with their answer.

Word Problem MESS Strategy Graphic Organizer

To help my students implement this strategy, I created a graphic organizer where each of the steps were listed, so they wouldn't forget any of them as they solved their word problem.

I also created a math journal using this graphic organizer with problems already written on them, so I could just have them printed and ready to go for a daily practice.

With this daily practice, I definitely saw a change in how my students approached word problems. They were actually reading and understanding what the problem asked them rather than just plugging numbers into an equation.

Free Word Problem Solving Graphic Organizer Download

If you would like to try out this strategy with your students, I have a free download with graphic organizers and signs featuring each step of the MESS problem solving strategy.

Math Journal Prompts Featuring the MESS Problem Solving Strategy

I also have ready-made math journal word problem prompts available for 1st - 6th grade. You can find them here.