Level E Lesson 1
SOLVE – S and O
SOLVE is a method that can be used to help us solve word problems. There are five steps to the SOLVE problem-solving method. Step S, Study the Problem; Step O, Organize the Facts; Step L, Line up a Plan; Step V, Verify Your Plan with Action; and Step E, Examine Your Results. We will be using this problem-solving method throughout the year to help us in solving word problems. Today we will focus on Step S, Study the Problem and Step O, Organize the Facts.
In Lesson 1 the objective is, The student will learn and practice the first two steps in the SOLVE problem-solving method.
As this is the first lesson of The Key Elements to Mathematics Success, there are not prerequisite skills included. We will use the skills that students developed in previous grades to build an understanding of the first two steps of SOLVE’s five step problem-solving method.
We will have three essential questions that will be guiding our lesson. Number 1, what do the S and O in SOLVE represent? Number 2, why is it important to know what the problem is asking? And number 3, why is it important to organize the facts in a word problem?
We will use the following word problem to help us with the first two steps of SOLVE. Monique wants to buy some new jeans. She saw them seven days ago at the mall. The jeans cost $22, including tax. Monique has saved $15. How much more money does Monique need to buy the jeans?
Good problem solvers should be able to understand what the problem is asking them to find. S stands for Study the Problem. In this step we will underline the question and determine what the problem is asking us to find. Let’s start by underlining the question. We need to identify where the question is located within the problem. How much more money does Monique need to buy the jeans? The second part of S we take this question and we turn it into a statement in our own words using, this problem is asking me to find as the beginning of our statement. It helps if we use the word the, to change this question into our own words. This problem is asking me to find the difference in the amount of money Monique has and the amount of money she needs to buy the jeans. This completes Step S.
In Step O, we Organize the Facts. Word Problems contain facts that are easier to deal with when organized. Organizing the facts helps good problem solvers pay attention to details. In Step O we will start by identifying the facts. A fact is any statement whether it is needed to solve the problem or not. Facts can also be numbers. For example a fact could be the number of points a team scored in a game, or the temperature of something hot or cold. A fact might also explain how much something costs. There maybe more than one fact in a sentence. We will re-read the problem and identify each fact as we go. Monique wants to buy some new jeans this is a fact so we will place a strike mark at the end of this fact. She saw them seven days ago at the mall, this is also a fact so we will place a strike mark at the end of this fact as well. The jeans cost $22, including tax, fact. Monique has saved $15, fact. Some facts are necessary when solving a problem and some are not. In order to determine if a fact is necessary we need to go back to the S Step to decide if the fact is needed to determine what the problem is asking us to find. In this problem we are asked to find the difference in the amount of money Monique has and the amount of money she needs to buy the jeans. In order to help us in identifying if a fact is necessary or unnecessary we will use an index card. And at one end of the index card we will place the letter U to mean that if we are showing the U right side up we are saying this fact is unnecessary. And at the other end of our index card we want to place an N signifying when this end is up the N stands for a necessary fact. Let’s go through and eliminate the unnecessary facts in the problem. Monique wants to buy some new jeans. Will this fact help us to find the difference in the amount of money Monique has and the amount of money that she needs to buy the jeans? No, this fact is unnecessary as it will not help us to find the amount of money that she needs still to buy the jeans, so we will cross out this fact. She saw them seven days ago at the mall. Knowing the number of days ago that she saw them is unnecessary as it will not help us in finding the difference in the amount of money that Monique has and the amount of money she needs to buy the jeans, so again we will cross out this fact. The jeans cost $22, including tax. This fact is necessary, as it will help us in finding out the difference in the amount of money she has and the amount of money that she needs to buy the jeans, so we will leave this fact in the problem. Monique has saved $15, again this will help us to solve the problem. So it is a necessary fact. So we will keep this fact as well. Last in Step O, Organize the Facts, we will list the necessary facts. Jeans cost $22. Monique already has $15. This completes our O Step of SOLVE.
Now we will create a SOLVE foldable helping us to organize the information we have learned in this lesson for future reference. In order to create this foldable we will need three sheets of colored paper. These three sheets of colored paper should be staggered so that they are about 1 inch apart at the bottom of each sheet as you see on your screen. We then want to fold the top of the papers downward toward you at approximately where the dashed line is located. Once you have done this it should create six colored flaps with two of the same colored flaps in the center as you see here with the two blue sections at the center of our foldable.
On the top flap of our foldable we will include a problem. Bryson collects football cards. He has collected them for the last six years. He has a collection of 456 cards. He wants to give the same number of cards to each of his four friends. How many cards will each of the boys receive?
On the first flap under the problem we are going to write the Step S, Study the Problem. You want to make sure when you write this that you can see it when the foldable is closed. So it should go just on the bottom of that first flap. Then we will lift up what the question is on the top flap and write our steps to S, Study the Problem in the space provided. First thing that we did in Step S was to underline the question. Let’s go back to the problem and underline the question. How many cards will each of the boys receive? Next we want to complete the statement, this problem is asking me to find the, by putting the question into our own words. This problem is asking me to find the number of football cards each boy will receive. This completes Step S of our SOLVE foldable.
On the next flap we will label this as Step O, Organize the Facts. Again, you want to be sure that you can see the title of this flap when the foldable is closed. When we lift the S flap we will have room to write on the O, Organize the Facts flap the steps that we followed in Step O. First, we identify the facts. Bryson collects football cards, fact. He has collected them for the last six years, fact. He has a collection of 456 cards, fact. He wants to give the same number of cards to each of his four friends, fact. Now that we’ve identified the facts, we want to eliminate the unnecessary facts. Remember going back to Step S that this problem is asking us to find the number of football cards each boy will receive. Knowing that Bryson collects football cards will not help us to know how many each of the boys will receive, so we will eliminate this fact. He has collected them for the last six years. Knowing how many years he has collected his cards also will not help us to find out the number of cards each boy will receive. So we will eliminate this fact as well. He has a collection of 456 cards. This will be necessary in order to figure out the number of cards each boy will receive, so we will keep this fact. He wants to give the same number of cards to each of his four friends. Knowing the number of friends he is sharing the cards with is also going to be necessary. So we will keep this fact. Last in Step O, we need to list the necessary facts that we found. Bryson has 456 cards. He shares with 4 friends. This completes Step O of our SOLVE foldable.
Now let’s go back and discuss the essential questions from this lesson.
Our first question was, what do S and O in SOLVE represent? S means, Study the Problem, and O means, Organize the Facts.
Why is it important to know what the problem is asking? Without a real understanding of what the problem is asking, it may not be solved properly and the answer may be incorrect.
And number 3, why is it important to organize the facts in a word problem? Facts are easier to deal with when organized. It helps to focus on the facts that are necessary to answer the question being asked.