This story was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news outlet focused on education. The Hechinger Report is a national nonprofit newsroom that reports on one topic: education.

Organizational strategies that help students break complex word problems into manageable chunks may be the key to solving them, according to a 2025 study.

In Central Falls, R.I., teachers are trying new strategies that move away from focusing on “key words,” the traditional, simplistic approach that often leads younger students astray CENTRAL FALLS, R.I ...

Students often struggle to connect math with the real world. Word problems—a combination of words, numbers, and mathematical operations—can be a perfect vehicle to take abstract numbers off the page.

Word problems try and tell students a story about the math problem in front of them. They are a useful way to connect abstract numbers to concrete situations, so students can learn early on to apply ...

Working memory is like a mental chalkboard we use to store temporary information while executing other tasks. Scientists worked with more than 200 elementary students to test their working memory, ...

Bill Whitaker is an award-winning journalist and 60 Minutes correspondent who has covered major news stories, domestically and across the globe, for more than four decades with CBS News. A high school ...

Chance Harrison and Jaylen Garibay, seniors at Rio Mesa High School, compare data and work on an analysis they collected on student stress levels. Credit: Javeria Salman/The Hechinger Report The ...

Segue Institute for Learning teacher Cassandra Santiago introduces a lesson on word problems to her first graders one spring afternoon. Credit: Phillip Keith for The Hechinger Report The Hechinger ...