ABSTRACT
Students who are successful at SMP 4 in early grades are starting to see how word problems can be connected to their daily lives. They can find the quantities they need within a word problem and are becoming proficient in their knowledge of the addition and subtraction situations so they can represent those quantities. They can simplify a problem in order to make sense of the quantities and their relationships. They can also look back at the original problem to determine if the answer makes sense. In order to fully apply SMP 4 when approaching a word problem, students should be able to take ownership of their procedures by using the following I Can statements:
U I can solve problems in everyday life. U I can identify important quantities and represent their relationships.
