I had been teaching a standard 4 class of mixed ability students. For much of the first few weeks of the term, I had little cause for concern. The class of twenty-two students was working diligently to complete 1-step worded problems involving the 4 operations. A few weeks earlier, I had managed to remediate issues relating to the division algorithm. I was ecstatic about completing the worded problems with similar mastery. Previously, three of my students had struggled with regrouping in subtraction and they were finally efficient with it. These students had problems comprehending words within story problems. Their struggle revolved around reading. As the weeks went by and much of the class transitioned to more difficult problems these students struggled.

One morning I decided to implement the following chart to help the struggling students. Immediately one student was able to solve a basic division word problem. I was thrilled, and the children themselves were emboldened to use the chart. I had photocopied the chart and stuck it into their books. I even made a classroom version of it for the entire class to use if needed. As the time went on, I noticed that although students were solving some problems accurately, others worded problems were terribly wrong.  The cause of this inaccuracy became glaring with one particular problem.

                               “Equal shares of crayons were placed into 3 boxes. Each box contained 120 crayons. How many crayons were there in total?”

The problem did not appear overly complicated but to the three students and others, it was puzzling. As usual, students confidently volunteered answers and their reasoning. I was stunned to hear the following. Students had chosen to add the 120 and 3 because they had seen the word “total” in the question part of the problem. Another group divided since they highlighted the word “each” and knew that “each” meant division.
I quickly explained the reasoning behind the correct operation, multiplication. Sadly, students kept repeating the mistake of using the key words within the problems incorrectly because they were using the strategy of isolating key words and performing the corresponding operation.
By the end of the second week, as the class moved on to multi-step problems, I was forced to remove the chart from the classroom and instructed them to not follow the words. This proved to be an even worse decision. In the short time, students had had so much early success with the strategy that they ignored my warning and continued to offer reasons for the methods they performed based on a key word they had seen in the problem.
 
I would caution teachers to avoid this strategy. Key words and math vocabulary in isolation has several shortcomings. More importantly, once this strategy has been accepted by even one child, it is difficult to unlearn. I’m certain I am not alone in the tale above. The earlier success was reinforced by offering simple problems with which to try the key words on. As the problems become slightly more context-based, the strategy did not translate.
Students who have established sound reasoning behind attaining a solution can regress by ignoring meaning and tend to oversimplify the method necessary for solving the problem. Additionally, several key words can have multiple meaning. As with the case of “each,” one student identified “each” as division, and another thought of it as meaning “1.” It is often likely that as problems increase in difficulty, such as with the case of multi-step problems, students tend to ignore additional clues and think that the final solution requires one step. In effect, concluding meaning from the context of the words is lost. Lastly, some problems simply have no known word clue with which to translate into a definite operation.
 
The result of my experience haunted me all the way to Standard 5. One student from that group never gave up on this strategy. Even though I had managed to work with her on several other strategies to solve problems, she would revert to using key words when her initial implementation failed. I now must live with my mistake.

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