Keywords are NOT the Key
I was asked to consult on a student Individualized Education Program (IEP) this week and it got me thinking about a presentation I gave a couple of years ago on the work of Karen Karp, Sarah Bush and Barbara Dougherty. They wrote an amazing article in Teaching Children Mathematics (Vol. 25, No. 7) entitled “Avoiding the Ineffective Keyword Strategy.” Basically the article is about the need to stop using the keyword strategy.
If you are not familiar with it, this is a strategy that has been pretty widely used in elementary schools in which students are taught to locate and circle “key words” in math word problems. They are taught that each key word has a unique meaning - it is tied to a specific math operation. An example would be that every time you see “in all” you should add. The strategy is taught with the best of intentions, to make math easier for the students. But our goal in mathematics education shouldn’t be to make math easier, it should be to build deeper conceptual understanding and connections to the mathematics. I’ll review the reasons mentioned in the article as to why this particular strategy is so ineffective. Here’s the thing - if research has proven that this strategy is ineffective for ALL learners, we definitely should not be writing it into IEP goals for our most struggling students. We have to be sure that any strategies written into a legal document like an IEP is research and/or evidence based.
Limitations of the Key Word Strategy
A key word strategy does not necessitate any attempt to make sense of the actual problem. Robert Kaplinsky out of California has a great blog post and YouTube video on the infamous shepherd problem. He found that some 75% of students gave a numerical response to a nonsensical word problem. They literally never tried to make sense of the problem - they did what I call “number plucking;” they grab those numbers and go, regardless of if it makes sense or not.
Students are incorrectly influenced by keywords that are taken out of context. Consider this problem: John had 14 marbles in his left pocket. He had 37 marbles in his right pocket. How many marbles did John have? Some students who are taught the key word strategy circle the word left and think “I need to subtract, because left always means subtract.” Then it’s exacerbated when they think, “well I know in subtraction to always start with the biggest number so I’ll just do 37-14.” Really this is a joining addition problem. And if we were making sense of the problem, a valid question from a student would be “Why does he have so many marbles in his pockets?” or “Doesn’t that make his pants too heavy?” With those types of inquiries we know they are reading for understanding.
Many problems do not include key words. That’s right, the strategy isn’t even always applicable. Assessment writers have caught on and you will rarely find a word problem on a standardized assessment in which the key word strategy can be applied to get the correct answer.
Keywords cannot be used with multi-step word problems. Two-step problems are introduced as early as second grade! Why would we teach a strategy that expires in 2nd grade?
Students using a keywords approach are not practicing how to read mathematical situations and make sense of them using prior knowledge. We want students to apply their reading comprehension skills to math word problems, not strip the reading out of them completely.
Replacement Strategy
It is frustrating when you’ve been using a strategy, program or tool and then you find out that it is no longer effective. Especially if you don’t have something available to replace it with. The article referenced and linked above has some recommendations for strategies that are proven to be effective that can be used instead. Another strategy I’d like to offer up is the Three Reads Instructional Routine. This routine encourages students to read for understanding and make meaning of the text including visualizing the situation. The strategy also lends itself well to both online and virtual implementation.
Learn More
You can learn more by reading the article Avoiding the Ineffective Keyword Strategy and checking out other books, articles and publications by Karen Karp, Sarah Bush and Barabara Dougherty. If you ever attend a National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) conference definitely look to see if they are speaking. They are as engaging as they are knowledgeable.
You can also follow them on Twitter:
Karen Karp @Ksquaredmath1
Sarah Bush @sarahbbush
Barbara Dougherty @DoughertyBarb
Juli Dixon started #KeyWordsAreEvil and wrote a great blog post on the topic worth checking out. You can follow her on Twitter @thestrokeofluck.
