UPS Math Strategy

As a reading and math interventionist, I work with students who are having difficulties in class. They somehow manage to develop misconceptions from the most well-intentioned best practices. Some of my students were ineffectively utilizing the CUBES strategy that they had been taught for word problems. I did some research and found that many people discourage its use because it can be problematic.

I especially enjoyed reading a post by Annie at Show Your Thinking Math. You can read her full post HERE. She gives some great examples for when CUBES fails to work and some helpful guidance on teaching word problems. Here's an example from her that reflects what I was seeing in class:

Annie takes away 3 cookies from her brother. She puts the cookies in her pile of 7 cookies. How many cookies does Annie have?

Most of my students would circle the numbers 7 and 3, underline takes away, and subtract to get 4 cookies. However, this is actually an addition problem. It should be 3+7=10!

She convinced me to abandon CUBES and find something more focused on getting at the heart of understanding word problems.

I found the UPS Check strategy was recommended often, but it needed some adapting to meet the needs of my particular students.

The first step is the hardest!! UNDERSTAND

I will start with NUMBERLESS word problems. Using this format forces students to focus on what the problem is actually saying instead of jumping into values and a solution too quickly.

Laura from Where the Magic Happens Teaching has an AMAZING post and it has a FREE set of numberless word problems that were perfect for my kids! You can visit her HERE for your set. 

My goal during this phase is to get my kids to read problems one sentence at a time. We will draw, act out, or explain what happened. We will keep rereading and adding a sentence until we know what actually happened in the word problem. Then, we will construct a number sentence and I will phase in one value at a time until the unknown element is clear. 

The Second Step should be easier then: PLAN

We spent the whole first semester working on fact fluency and addition and subtraction strategies. They should have strategies ready to use "on the run". Once we have our number sentence, my students will plan how they wish to solve it. We try to use the algorithm as little as possible. Most of my MTSS math kids are more visual and prefer other strategies, but it is a viable option for some. 

Lastly, we will SOLVE AND SHARE. 

This is where I made some changes to the UPS Check Strategy. I embedded the check part into the questions for this step. Since my school is working on the 4C's I need my kids to communicate mathematically. I also want to hear them use domain-specific vocabulary. So, they will explain their thinking to someone (me, their partner, the group), and we will scaffold that towards explaining their thinking in writing. 

Since I will camped out on word problems for a while, I needed a bulletin board to use routinely. If you would like to have mine, you can download it through Dropbox HERE or on the picture below. It can be converted into an anchor chart on chart paper or bound into a flipbook if you lack bulletin board space. 

I would love to hear from you! How do you approach instruction in word problems?