Asking Questions
When children are presented with a word problem, one of the first reading strategies that they need to employ is to ask questions. One of the first questions to utter from the lips of many students is, "What do I do?" This should not be a question for the teacher, but a question to ask of themselves. Students have learned many defense mechanisms to help them avoid doing the actual work presented before them. By asking the question, "what do I do?" they hope the teacher will come over and explain to them what to do or better yet, the teacher will do the problem for them. Arthur Hyde believes that as students progress in their math education, that as teachers emphasize the one correct answer that is obtained quickly implies to students that if they ask a question, it is a sign that that they do not know. Hyde also believes that students use much of their energy covering up when they do not know an answer or how to solve a problem. It is important for teachers to encourage their students to ask questions in math class. Students should know that mistakes are a natural part of the learning process. The classroom should foster an environment of acceptance where no one laughs or makes fun of another student for asking a "dumb" question or getting an answer wrong. Research in the area of asking questions shows that children who ask questions while working on a task helps in developing their metacognitive awareness by monitoring their own thinking. When students have designed their own study and collected data, or if they have created their own word problems, they are especially good at answering the who, what, when, where, and why. Using the KWC can be an excellent tool to help students to start asking questions about problems or studies that they are not familiar with. Hyde believes the basic kind of questions that students should be asking when solving word problems are as follows(8): What are the conditions, limitations, and constraints of the problem? Is there sufficient information to get an answer to the problem? Is there one answer, more than one answer, or no answer? Are there different ways to represent a problem? Is what I am doing making sense? What have I done so far and where have I been already? In other words, am I making progress with the problem? Finally, are my answers reasonable? As children ask questions about the word problems in front of them, the next step is making a connection to the text in the word problems.
As the child uses the KWC chart, it forces them to ask themselves questions. What do I know about this problem? Next comes, what do I want to find out? These two questions can easily lead to other questions to help the child better understand the problem. As the child analyzes the problem and looks for any special rules or conditions to consider, even more questions can arise to even further help the child with their understanding of the word problem. As the child is asking questions about the problem at hand, they will usually begin making connections to the problem. This represents the final step as a child progresses in their mathematical career. For the purpose of introducing word problems to students, their ultimate question should be do I need to add or subtract?
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