Book Report / Review Sports Word Problems Starring Decimals and Percents, Math Word Problems Solved

August 12, 2011

Title: Sports Word Problems Starring

Decimals and Percents

Author: Rebecca Wingard-Nelson

Type of book: The library categorized this book under reference and non-fiction. It's about math.

What the book is about. – Introduction.

This book basically gives you the steps needed to solve word problems. The author is using this book to teach and to entertain. By entertain I mean that while reading the book I didn't feel like it was something I could not understand. The book also has lots of ridiculous pictures for the word problems. 

The book gives the reader tips for organization and methods for problem solving. For example in the book's introduction the author answers questions that I have had and I am sure many other kids have had also. Here is one of the most often asked question, “Why do I have to do math?”.

The problem solving tips listed in the beginning of the book are doable, in other words I could really see myself using these tips.

The main characters in the book.

There are no characters other than the numbers that are used in many example word problems. But maybe I could write that the methods for solving the word problems could be the characters. For example “Clue Words”, are used repeatedly when the author discusses word problems with “Clue Words”. She writes that addition, subtraction, multiplication, division and opposite problems all have “Clue Words” that can help you figure out the problem.The author must like sports because she uses sports in the word problems for examples. Also, there are characters in the word problems, so they count as characters, but there is no specific main character or characters.

What happens in the story – book?

Ms. Wingard-Nelson also says that when doing word problems drawing a picture can help you understand a problem better. For example she says to ask yourself three questions.

• What do you know?
• What are you trying to find out?
• What is happening in the problem?

Then she says to make a plan, that's the part where you draw the picture. After you draw the picture then you can begin to solve the word problem. Then you can work the problem out with the picture you've drawn, because drawing a picture helps you see some little bits and pieces some people can't see in their heads.

The author also writes that using a model, or changing word problems to equations (something my father loves to do), and using a table, which is just another way of saying a graph can also be a way of helping you solve the problem.

I liked the chapter on finding the hidden information because I like to think of myself as a detective. And when I have a word problem where I need to look for hidden information it makes the whole process more fun for me. Remember, math is not my favorite subject but a necessary one.

Conclusion:

The author has more than eight ways of solving word problems that I found helpful for me. And at the end of the book she reviews the steps to use for each of those word problems which I found helpful.

I wouldn't say that this book makes math fun for me but it did help to understand how to solve word problems. 

You might have an easier time finding this book at your local library. If you need help be sure to check in with your librarian and have fun! 

Thanks for reading my review!

Priya USA