It’s important for students to have a clear strategy for approaching story problems. The CUBES method gives students an easy-to-use, step-by-step tool to understand and solve word problems. Each letter in the acronym “CUBES” represents a step that students will follow to work through the problem.
While CUBES isn’t the only problem-solving strategy available, it is effective and worth teaching to your students. I recommend teaching your students multiple different problem-solving approaches, and allowing them to choose their favorite method. Introducing this element of choice to your class can improve their engagement while encouraging them to solve word problems like pros!
In this blog post, I’ll guide you through each step of the CUBES strategy. Plus, did you know you can get a set of adorable CUBES Posters for FREE from my TPT Store? Click the button below to check them out!
Finding Important Information in Story Problems with the CUBES Strategy
C- Circle the Numbers
For this first step of the CUBES strategy, students will need to circle the numbers in the word problem. This helps draw attention and focus to the numbers that students will need to do some sort of computation with.
U – Underline the Question
The second step is to underline the question that the story problem is asking students to solve. At this point, you should teach your students to stop and think about what the question is asking them to do. Is it an addition, subtraction, multiplication, or division problem?
B – Box the Important Words
Next, students will draw a box around words that are important. These are words that may give students clues about how to solve the story problem.
PLEASE NOTE: The word “more” does not mean it is an addition problem every time. Teaching “keywords” is misleading, confuses students, and does not promote critical thinking. For more about the pitfalls of “keywords,” please read this article.
Eliminating Extra Info in Word Problems with CUBES
E – Eliminate & Evaluate
The fourth step is to eliminate unnecessary information (if any). This requires students to think about what they actually need to solve the problem. Students can draw a single line through words that are not needed.
For the Evaluation piece, students can write an equation to show their plan for solving the problem.
CUBES: Solving the Word Problem & Checking Your Work!
S – Solve & Check!
The final step of CUBES is where students will follow through with their plan and perform the computations while showing all of their work to solve the word problem. This could include using methods like a number line, the standard algorithm, tens frames, hundreds chart, drawing a picture, and more.
To check their answer, you can have students solve the equation using a different method than the first one they chose. For example, if they originally solved the problem using a number line, then they could also draw a picture to check themselves.
If you’re looking for daily word problems to help your students practice problem-solving, click here to join my email list for a free sample of Daily Word Problem Warm-Ups!
Cracking the Code: CUBES Math Strategy Posters for Word Problems
CUBES in an effective and memorable strategy for solving word problems in elementary school. Click here to grab your FREE copy of these CUBES Posters / Anchor Charts to hang in your classroom all year long!
Do you have a favorite word problem solving strategy? Share your tips with us in the comments!
If you’d like to save these CUBES posters for later on Pinterest, pin the images below.
