Develop concrete word problems. Select two students and give each student a number of tennis balls to hold. Introduce a one-step addition problem: State the number of balls held by each child and ask how many tennis balls there are altogether. Change up the students and the number of balls and repeat. Ask students to identify the word in the problem that lets them know they are supposed to add. Use the same concrete technique for subtraction, multiplication and division.
Teach students to develop their own word problems. After students practice concrete examples of word problems, encourage them to develop word problems of their own. Model the activity by verbalizing a problem yourself and writing it on the board. Underline the numbers and circle the word that is key to the operation. Think out loud, repeating parts of the word problem that indicate which number is subtracted from the other, for example. Instruct students to write word problems of their own. Allow students to present their problems for the class to solve.
Write a mathematical problem on the chalkboard and ask students to write a word problem that fits the mathematical problem. After doing a few of these aloud, have students write word problems on paper to make certain each student has an opportunity to practice. Repeat the process for all four math operations to provide students an opportunity to use key words for operations in the problems they develop themselves.
Language is key to visualization. A math word-wall teaching activity involves writing all the symbols and words associated with math operations on a large sheet of paper. With the students' help, write all the math operations symbols on the word wall. Next, write all the technical terms -- the ones used in the students' math books, such as sum, difference, addend, multiplicand, product. Finally, add the academic terms, such as determine and take away. Conduct a discussion, allowing students to define the terms in their own words.