Developing critical thinking skills with math word problems is incredibly important. Students should move beyond simple rote memorization and fact-finding to understand the thought process and concept behind those facts.
In doing so, students are developing strong thinking skills that can help them become successful lifelong learners.
In elementary school, first grade math word problems are a great place to start teaching critical thinking strategies.
Here are some tips to help your first grader think through word problems with a critical mind.
Create a Plan
To be a strong critical thinker, your child needs to take the time to plan and strategize before tackling a problem.
You can teach your child to do this by having her read the problem, then dissect what it is asking.
She can then underline the important information in the problem and create a picture or diagram to represent what the problem is asking.
This ensures that he is taking the steps to carefully outline and identify what the problem is asking.
Teaching these steps early on is also incredibly important, as your child will face multi-step problems and ones with distractors in the future.
Ask “Why?”
One of the keys to critical thinking in math is being able to not just do the problem, but also to explain why.
In first grade math word problems, the “why” is often quite simple to identify, but you should still be asking.
Find out why the child chose to count, add or subtract. Have him explain his reasoning in his own words and help him write it down. Then, talk about how he came to that conclusion, encouraging him to continue to think about the problem and his steps for solving it.
