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stand, I read on to look for clues, I think about what I know, or talk to a friend ” (Oczkus, 2010, p. 22). Clarifying helps students be strategic when struggling with comprehension and “ rereading the problem ” and “ talk to a friend ” are strategies cur rently used in the mathematics classroom. Students learn to ask specific questions about components of the problem that is troublesome for them. Summarizing is a research - based strategy that im proves overall comprehension (Oczkus, 2010 cited Duke & Pearson, 2002). Incorporating mini sum maries during the reading process is helpful be cause it is a complex process. Students can: recall notable events or details, order points, and use syn onyms when reading text. In mathematics, we con tend that summarizing draws on their prior mathe matical knowledge to help them construct an over all understanding of the text just as it does when students read other forms of text (Oczkus, 2010 cites Rhinehart, Stahl & Erickson, 1986; Taylor, 1982). When summarizing mathematics word problems students can state the context of the problem and identify the action occurring in the problem. This aligns with the last part of the prob lem comprehension process, “… integration of the information into a coherent structure ” (Lewis & Mayer,1987, p.363). At this point, students are ready to enter Step 2 in Polya ’ s problem solving process, design a plan, that may involve drawing a mathematical diagram, identify a solution strategy, or identifying a mathematical model that suits the situation (e.g., Add To, Take From). Modifying the Fab Four to mathematics word problems gives teachers a framework to teach stu dents sense - making (i.e., comprehension) on these two levels concurrently: reading comprehension and problem comprehension, during the first step in the problem - solving process. In this article we showed how the Fab Four read ing comprehension strategy (Oczkus, 2010) can facilitate problem comprehension (Lewis & May er, 1980) when students are solving mathematics word problems based on the three - sentence tem plate. The Fab Four reading comprehension strate gy, used with the pedagogy of gradual release of responsibility, allows students to take ownership Conclusion

of their own mathematical problem - solving skill development. We contend the three - sentence struc ture is useful in their skill development because it brings to the forefront the way students need to interrogate the sentences in a word problem to un derstand it. Implementing the thinking strategies in the mathe matics classroom may enhance students ’ mathe matics word problem solving experiences. In the early elementary grades, before standardized test ing occurs, students can learn how to interrogate word problems. In addition, it may support strug gling mathematics students and English Language Learners alike to become independent problem solvers. We contend all students can be independ ent word problem solvers.

References

Second Handbook of Research on Mathematics Teaching and Learning , pp 371 - 404.

Virginia Mathematics Teacher vol. 48, no. 1

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