Analyzing the word-problem performance and strategies of students experiencing mathematics difficulty

•Students with mathematics difficulty (MD) demonstrate limited word-problem strategies.•General education word-problem instruction does not meet the needs of all students with MD.•Successful word-problem intervention uses a meta-cognitive strategy.•Successful word-problem intervention also focuses on schemas and pre-algebraic reasoning. The purpose of this study was to examine the word-problem performance and strategies utilized by 3rd-grade students experiencing mathematics difficulty (MD). We assessed the efficacy of a word-problem intervention and compared the word-problem performance of students with MD who received intervention (n = 51) to students with MD who received general education classroom word-problem instruction (n = 60). Intervention occurred for 16 weeks, 3 times per week, 30 min per session and focused on helping students understand the schemas of word problems. Results demonstrated that students with MD who received the word-problem intervention outperformed students with MD who received general education classroom word-problem instruction. We also analyzed the word-problem strategies of 30 randomly-selected students from the study to understand how students set up and solve word problems. Students who received intervention demonstrated more sophisticated word-problem strategies than students who only received general education classroom word-problem instruction. Findings suggest students with MD benefit from use of meta-cognitive strategies and explicit schema instruction to solve word problems.