It's because they're being asked to solve before they understand what's happening in the story. When instruction jumps straight to "what operation should I use?" students hunt for keywords instead of making sense of the story.

Learn how to teach word problems through comprehension, not guessing.

Your students don’t know what word problems are asking.

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For 1st–3rd grade teachers

But it’s not because they can’t read or compute.

Why Students Guess at Word Problems and How to Stop It

You've tried procedures like CUBES, taught keywords, used bar models, maybe even tried CGI.

Some of these help more than others, but even the stronger approaches leave a gap: students follow steps without understanding what the word problem is asking. This shows up across all classrooms, and especially for students still developing English, receiving interventions, or reading below grade level—and it's visible in your data.

There’s a better way.

The Problem Isn’t Your Students. It’s the Strategies.

Keywords, step-by-step procedures, and operations-first thinking gives kids something to do, but they don't help kids understand.

THAT'S WHERE STRUCTURES OF EQUALITY (SoE) COMES IN.

SoE is a comprehension-first framework. With SoE, students start by making sense of the story: what’s happening, what the numbers represent, and how they relate.

Then, they use one of three structures to model that relationship before they ever solve.

Repeated Equal Groups

Parts Equal Total

Compare

Example: There are 18 desks in rows in a classroom. Each row has 6 desks. How many rows are there?

Example: Esmerelda had some LEGO sets. She got 6 more for her birthday. Now she has 11 LEGO sets. How many did she start with?

Example: Jordan has 14 marbles. Emma has 9. How many more marbles does Jordan have?

This isn’t just math instruction. It’s literacy instruction.

Students are reading stories, identifying main ideas, and reasoning about relationships. They’re using the same comprehension skills they rely on in reading.

“Kids actually understand what the problem is asking them to do."

- Stacy Eleczko, M.Ed, K-8 Math Education Consultant

"SoEs combine all of the most effective strategies into one simple structure so students can understand story problems. Once kids have learned the structures, they don’t just pull out numbers and randomly pick an operation or get discouraged and give up. With SoEs, you see light bulb moments. Kids actually understand what the problem is asking them to do."

You’ll see this…

Start with the story
Focus on understanding the relationship
Describe the relationship first
Use consistent structures that match the story

What Happens When Students Understand the Story Before They Solve

There are only three SoE structures because there are only three basic relationships in elementary word problems.

Students learn to identify the relationship, the math main idea, and then model it with a structure that matches. When they do, you can see exactly what they understand and what they don’t.

Instead of this…

Start with the question
Focus on getting an answer
Randomly choose an operation
Use different strategies for different problems

Explore free classroom resources

The math main idea in action

This is what it looks like when comprehension comes first.

A Simple Way to Start Teaching Word Problem Comprehension Tomorrow

Not sure where to begin? Start here.

This free mini-lesson introduces students to the idea that number stories, just like reading stories, have characters, a setting, and a main idea.

This gives them a foundation to return to as they learn to make sense of new problems.

It’s a simple way to shift your instruction toward comprehension without changing everything at once.

Get the Mini-Lesson

THE CREATOR OF STRUCTURES OF EQUALITY (SoE)

I’ve been where you are.

I was doing everything I’d been taught: teaching keywords, modeling steps, using procedures. But my students still didn’t understand what the problem was asking.

At first, I thought it was me. But the more I worked with other teachers, the more I realized this wasn’t a personal failure. It was a pattern.

So I started asking a different question: what if students learned to make sense of the story before they tried to solve it?

That's how Structures of Equality came to be.

Today, SoE is used in classrooms around the world.

Learn more about my story

Hi, I'm Julie

A Framework That Replaces Old Word Problem Strategies

Structures of Equality isn’t one more thing to add to your plate. It's a different way of thinking about word problems altogether.

It replaces:

keyword strategies
step-by-step routines
operation-first thinking

The full framework is coming in the Structures of Equality book, available summer 2026.

Join the Waitlist

Get first access and a discount when it launches.

“Math becomes an understandable process, rather than memorization and misunderstanding of isolated algorithms."

- Cissy Mckissick, WCPSS SPED Teacher

"For years, I saw the lack of understanding about the relationships between numbers in a given problem blocking their growth. Structures of Equality prevents this – students must actually see the relationship between the numbers and represent it in consistent, taught, visual structures. From there, the logic of how to solve the problem often becomes apparent. Students are excited to understand why the calculation makes sense and enjoy telling the reasoning behind their solution.”

The Results When Comprehension Comes First

And at the end of the year?

Here’s what one 5th-grade classroom saw after a year of SoE instruction:

At the beginning of the year,

Only 8 students were expected to pass the EOG (End of Grade) test*
14 students had less than a 50% chance of passing
Teacher provided consistent and explicit instruction in SoE
7 students had SoE instruction in previous grades

27 students passed the EOG
21 passed with a 4 or higher

27 students exceeded expected growth
Of the 7 who had previous SoE instruction, 5 scored a 5. All passed.

*Based on EVAAS data. EVAAS is a software system that uses historical data to predict expected growth and proficiency scores.

This is About Access

Every student needs this, even the ones who get the right answers.

Students who've learned to hunt for keywords can look successful without understanding what the problem is asking. That gap shows up later, when problems get more complex.

SoE builds the conceptual foundation all students need from the start.