Mixed word problems, step by step
A page of only addition lets a child switch off and add everything on it.
How many bread rolls does Dev have in all?
- Read it through once. Grabbing the numbers on the first read means choosing an operation before you know the story, and that choice is the only hard part of a word problem.
- Now the numbers: 6 and 3. Finding them is not the same as knowing what to do with them — that comes next, and it comes from the story rather than from the numbers.
- Equal groups, and you are told how many groups and how big each one is — that is a multiplication, and adding the two numbers is the mistake the story is set up to catch. So this one is a multiplication: 6 × 3.
- 6 × 3 = 18 bread rolls. And answer the question that was ASKED — "How many bread rolls does Dev have in all?" — in bread rolls, because the sum on its own is not yet an answer.
How it works.
- 01
Read it through once. Grabbing the numbers on the first read means choosing an operation before you know the story, and that choice is the only hard part of a word problem.
- 02
Now the numbers: 6 and 3. Finding them is not the same as knowing what to do with them — that comes next, and it comes from the story rather than from the numbers.
- 03
Equal groups, and you are told how many groups and how big each one is — that is a multiplication, and adding the two numbers is the mistake the story is set up to catch. So this one is a multiplication: 6 × 3.
- 04
6 × 3 = 18 bread rolls. And answer the question that was ASKED — "How many bread rolls does Dev have in all?" — in bread rolls, because the sum on its own is not yet an answer.