Level D Lesson 1
SOLVE – S and O
SOLVE is a method that can be used to help solve word problems. There are five steps of SOLVE. S, Study the Problem; O, Organize the Facts; L, Line up a Plan; V, Verify Your Plan with Action, and E, Examine Your Results. We will be using this problem-solving method throughout the year. 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 no 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 be using the following problem to help us discover steps Steps S and O of the SOLVE problem-solving process. Kara and Steve collect toy cars. Kara started her collection 4 years ago, and Steve started his collection 6 years ago. Kara has 48 cars in her collection, and Steve has 36 cars in his collection. How many do they have all together?
Good problem solvers should be able to understand what a problem is asking them to find. Step S stands for study the problem. First we will underline the question. In this problem the question is, how many do they have all together? Next we want to put this question into our own words. By completing the phrase, this problem is asking me to find. It is helpful to start with the word the, to put this question into our own words. This problem is asking me to find the number of cars Kara and Steve have all together.
Now we will look at Step O, 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. The first thing we will do is identify the facts. A fact in a word problem is that 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. A fact may also be how much something costs. There are many ways that a fact can be included. There is also a chance that there is more than one fact in a sentence. Let’s take a look at our problem and identify each of the facts. Kara and Steven collect toy cars, this is a fact. So we will put a strike mark at the end of this fact. Kara started her collection 4 years ago, also a fact. So we will place another strike mark at the end of this fact, and Steve started his collection 6 years ago, fact. Kara has 48 cars in her collection, fact, and Steve has 36 cars in his collection, fact. How many do they have all together? We have now identified each of the facts in this problem, and placed a strike mark at the end of each fact. Some facts are necessary when solving a problem. And some facts may not be necessary. Even though a fact is true it might not be needed to solve the problem. In order to determine if a fact is necessary, we’ll go back to the S Step, and decide if the fact is needed to determine what the problem is asking us to find. We will now take an index card and at one end of the index card draw a check mark. The check mark will signify that a fact is necessary. On the other end of the index card we want to put an x. The x is going to signify that the fact is unnecessary. Now let’s go back to the problem and our second step in O, Organize the Facts, is to eliminate the unnecessary facts. Kara and Steve collect toy cars. Since we found in Step S, that this problem is asking us to find the number of cars Kara and Steve have all together, we will not need to know that they collect toy cars to help us to solve this problem. So we will put the x up on our index card to show that this fact is unnecessary, and then cross out that fact in the problem. Our next fact is that, Kara started her collection 4 years ago. Knowing how long ago Kara started her collection is not going to help us to find out how many cars they have all together. So again, this fact is unnecessary and we will cross out the fact. And Steve started his collection 6 years ago. Also an unnecessary fact to finding out how many cards they have all together, so we will cross out this fact as well. Kara has 48 cars in her collection. This is necessary, because it will help us to find out how many cars they have all together. So we will keep this fact. And Steve has 36 cars in his collection. This is also necessary to finding out how many cars they have all together. So we will also keep this fact. Finally in Step O, we will list the necessary facts. Kara has 48 cars. Steve has 36 cars. This completes Step O, Organize the Facts.
Now we will create a foldable helping us to organize the information we have learned in this lesson for future reference. We will start with three sheets of colored paper. These sheets should be staggered about 1 inch apart at the bottom as you see on the screen. We will then fold the top of each sheet down toward you at approximately where the dashed line is located. This should create six colored flaps with two of the same colored flaps in the center. First we will put the problem on the top cover of our foldable. Romero scored 15 points in every basketball game he played in this season. He was the high scorer. If he played in 10 games, how many points did he score for the season?
The first flap of our SOLVE foldable will be for S, Study the Problem. We will put S, Study the Problem on the part of the flap that you can see when your foldable is closed. When we lift the top flap we will list the steps that we completed in S, Study the Problem. First we underline the question, how many points did he score for the season? Next we complete the statement, this problem is asking me to find the…Putting the question into our own words. This problem is asking me to find the number of points Romero scored for the season.
Now let’s look at Step O, Organize the Facts, which will be on the second flap of our foldable. When we lift up the S flap we’re going to now list the steps that we completed in O. First we identify the facts. Romero scored 15 points in every basketball game he played in this season, fact. He was the high scorer, fact., if he played in 10 games, fact. How many points did he score for the season? Now that we’ve identified the facts we need to eliminate the unnecessary facts. In order to eliminate the unnecessary facts, let’s look at what we included for Step S, for what this problem is asking me to find. Since this problem is asking me to find, the number of points Romero scored for the season , I want to include the facts that are going to help me to find that answer. Romero scored 15 points in every basketball game he played in this season. Knowing the number of points he scored in each game is going to help us to know the number of points he scored for the season. So we will keep this fact. He was the high scorer. Knowing he was the high scorer on the team does not help us to answer how many points he scored for the season. So we will eliminate this fact. If he played in 10 games, knowing that Romero played in 10 games will help us to find his score for the season. So we will also keep this fact. Finally in Step O, we will list the necessary facts, scored 15 points in each game, Played 10 games. That completes our SOLVE foldable for Steps S and O.
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.
Number 2, 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.