Intensifying Language Supports in Word-Problem Schema Instruction

Students encounter mathematics word problems as early as kindergarten and continue to see them throughout their schooling experience. Schema instruction with an attack strategy can support students to successfully navigate word-problem solving. Schemas help students categorize word problems by similar characteristics. To better support students making minimal word-problem-solving growth with schema instruction, teachers can consider five strategies to increase support in schema instruction: mathematics language, paraphrasing, gestures, visuals, and organizers. These five strategies pair well with all the additive and multiplicative schema problems, making them flexible tools to work across instruction. This article discusses the evidence base for, how to implement, and cautions for the five strategies when pairing them with schema instruction.