Status of Grade Six Pupils' Skills in Solving Mathematics Word Problems in San Cristobal Elementary School

Abstract

INTRODUCTION

Mathematics plays a very important role in our daily living. It is a subject that deals with problems that involve a process of analysis, computation, and other mental skills. Historically, learning mathematics and teaching it has been motivated by the belief that a study of mathematics helps individuals to learn, to reason, and to apply such reasoning to everyday problems. Mathematics develops the mind to think critically and analytically. It is more than counting, measuring, and computing. It is an eye-opener to all sciences. As far as mathematics instruction is concerned, the major goal is the involvement of the students in the process of discovering mathematical ideas and formulating a process. One of the interesting concerns about learning mathematics is the fact that it develops the mind to solve problems that need higher order thinking skills.

METHODS

This study used experimental research design in determining the status among grade 6 pupils with ninety (90) respondents. A questionnaire was prepared, validated, distributed, tallied, and interpreted to identify difficulties encountered by the pupils and used frequency and percentage to interpret the data.

RESULTS

The Performance Level of Grade Six pupils in solving word problems was low with a percentage of 68%. Most of them were specifically poor in solving word problems. Only eight (8) of the pupils fell under excellent level, ten (10) pupils fell under good level, 16 pupils fell under the average level, and 56 were low. The difficulties of the Grade Six (6) pupils in solving word problems reveals that most of the respondents marked the difficulties given to the highest extent, which means they are incompetent in acquiring many mathematics skills and lacking in cognitive abilities of learning. Only a few of them found it easy to solve word problems, at a percentage of 2%.

DISCUSSIONS

The performance level of Grade Six Pupils in San Cristobal Elementary School was low. The reading and understanding the language used within a word problem has the greatest number of respondents. This is the greatest number of difficulties encountered by Grade Six Pupils. The researchers came up with the proposed activities: a. Big Brother/Peer Teaching Approach, b. Trial and Error Approach, c. Use of Instructional Materials, d. Create a table or a graph, and e. Problem of the Day. The students should establish good study habits and a healthy studying environment. They should attend makeup classes and seek the assistance of the parents to cope up with less mastered skills in mathematics.