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.

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 ...

For 23 years, I’ve taught high school math. And for 23 years, I’ve been told by people that they either are a “math person” or they are not. I get it: Math isn’t easy. Movies and TV shows make it look ...