Multi-Step Word Problems

1. 1 Show: 'Lena has 24 stickers. She gives 8 to her friend. How many does she have?' (One step.) Then: 'Lena has 24 stickers. She gives 8 to her friend and then gets 12 more. How many now?' (Two steps.) Count the questions — the second has two things to find.
2. 2 Read, Underline key information, Choose the operation, Solve, Answer in a sentence, Check. Model this with one problem, annotating each step visibly.
3. 3 Work through a problem stopping after step 1. 'What have we found? Is this the final answer? What else do we need to do?' Students recognise the intermediate answer is a tool, not the goal.
4. 4 Pairs work through three two-step problems together, one person recording, the other checking. Each step is labelled: Step 1: ___. Answer: ___. Step 2: ___. Final answer: ___.
5. 5 Problems mixing addition, subtraction and multiplication. Students must decide which operation each step requires before calculating. 'Underline the numbers and circle the operation words.'
6. 6 Students write their own two-step word problem and swap with a partner. The partner solves it. Discuss: 'Does the problem make sense? Is the answer possible?'
7. 7 For each answer, students ask: 'Is this reasonable? Could a class have −5 children? Could a bag weigh 500kg?' Learning to self-check against real-world plausibility.

Tap a step to mark it as done.