The third and last intervention program outlined in chapter 8 is called the "Solving Math Word Problems" program. It is targeted towards students with disabilities in elementary and middle school. The program is comprised of eight units, five of which are addition & subtraction problems, and the remaining are multiplication and division problems). Lessons are 30-60 minutes long. There are four major components to this program.
First -To start, like the other programs, there is a big emphasis on teaching students to recognize different types of word problems. In this program, they are called "change", "group" and "compare" (these correspond to addition & subtraction word problems), "multiplicative compare" and "vary" for division & multiplication word problems.
Secondly - There is a diagram that accompanies each problem type, and students are to extract information from each problem and translate this information into the diagram. Each of the problem types has a corresponding diagram, showcasing the biggest aspects of those particular types of word problems. Teachers model how to use the diagrams, and students are given opportunities to practice transferring information from story situations and word problems onto the corresponding diagram.
Third - Students are to use a series of rules they learn to determine the correct operation necessary in solving the problem. Lastly, students must actually solve the problem. These four steps have been broken down into a Mnemonic called "FOPS". That is:
Find the problem type
Organize the information in the problem (using the diagram)
Plan to solve the problem
Solve the problem
Lastly - Compute/Solve the problem!
A key component of the program is that it starts out by giving students story situations instead of questions, making it easier for students to blend and understand the mathematical concepts behind the situations presented in future problems.
Example of a story situation (from the textbook): "Tyler has 37 Star Wars cards on Tuesday. He gives his sister 5 cards on Wednesday. Tyler now has 32 Star Wards cards". This is to get students to focus solely on the math behind the problem. No question is asked.
When students are able to accurately categorize story situations and the correct operation, story situations end and the lessons move on to actual questions.
Example of a question (based off of example from the textbook): "Ku has some cookies; he gives 5 to his sister. Now, he has 32 cookies. How many cookies did he have before he gave his sister cookies?
Likewise, when students progress further through the lessons, the use of the diagrams also stops. This gives students the chance to solve problems independently without any scaffolds.
No comments:
Post a Comment