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into an internal representation and integration of the information into a coherent structure ” (Lewis & Mayer,1987, p.363). The goal of mathematics teachers students be aware of their thinking and understanding as they read the word problem as text, understand the problem relayed in the text, and shift to identifying a suitable problem solving plan (e.g., Hyde, 2006; NCTM, 2000). The word problem solving process is cyclical (Carlson & Bloom, 2005), in which students revisit the steps of the problem - solving process several times be fore reaching a final solution. Throughout the problem - solving process, students toggle between reading the problem and solving the problem, which indicates the students are switching between reading comprehension and problem comprehen sion. This means, solving word problems is an overall comprehension action on two planes: stu dents comprehend the text of the word problem from a reading perspective, and they read the lan guage of mathematics (Fuentes, 1998). In this article, we address one set of reading com prehension strategies called the Fab Four (Oczkus, 2010). The Fab Four (Oczkus, 2010) reading strat egies may support students when solving mathe matics word problems when integrated with the problem - solving process using a three - sentence word problem structure. We begin by discussing Polya ’ s (1973) popular problem - solving process, followed by the three - sentence word problem tem plate. We use the three - sentence template (Lewis & Mayer, 1987) to design the word problem, then apply the Fab Four (Oczkus, 2010) reading com prehension strategies in step 1 of the problem solving process (Polya, 1973). In the mathematics education community, the Na tional Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) promotes the teaching of mathematics using rich mathematical tasks that require students to use their reasoning and problems solving skills along with meaningful classroom discourse that help them make sense of the mathematics (NCTM, 2014). This instructional practice develops stu dents ’ abilities to solve mathematics problems. There are several problem - solving strategies used in the mathematics classroom that help students Polya ’ s Problem Solving Process

make sense of the mathematics. Most are variants, such as R.U.N.S. mentioned earlier, of Poyla's (1973) four - step process he first introduced in his book published in 1949 that was intended for high school students. The steps include: 1) understand the problem, 2) design a plan, 3) carry out the plan, and 4) look back and check. Polya (1973) empha sizes reading and comprehending the problem in the first step. We focus attention on Step 1, which allows students to enter Step 2 in order to create a mathematical diagram or identify a suitable strate gy that goes beyond a wild guess. The first step is understanding the problem. Teach ers know from classroom experiences that this re quires more than one reading of the problem. Re peated readings move the student from reading comprehension as a text toward problem compre hension, which results in a problem - solving strate gy. From the problem comprehension perspective, Polya (1973) encourages students to answer ques tions such as: Step 1 Is it possible to satisfy the condition? Is the condi tion sufficient to determine the unknown? Or is the condition insufficient, redundant, or contradictory? These types of questions provide entry into the problem - solving process. Polya (1973) also in cludes actions students can take to initiate the problem - solving process, such as Separate the various parts of the condition and write them down (if conditions exist) These actions Polya (1973) suggests are currently used among math teachers. Today, we call two of the recommendations, draw a picture and introduce suitable notation, two different representations of the mathematics (NCTM, 2000). Next, we discuss and show the three - sentence word problem tem plate and how we see it relates to the problem comprehension definition as students shift from Draw a picture Introduce suitable notation What is the unknown? What is the data given in the problem? What is the condition if it exists?

Virginia Mathematics Teacher vol. 48, no. 1

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