Abstract
Word problems are generally considered a difficult and very often an unpopular part of teaching mathematics. The causes of difficulties why pupils fail to solve word problems, i.e. problems that try to capture real situations, are dealt with, for example, in the publication Critical places of mathematics in elementary school through the eyes of teachers (Rendl, Vondrová, 2013, pp. 96-107).
By word problems we mean problems with a (pseudo-)real context. Some numerical data are given, some are sought based on the relationships between them.
The task is to mathematize the real situation. This means discovering the relationship between the data given in the task specification and determining what numerical operation describes these relationships between the numerical data.
The result of the task must be verified both numerically and semantically. One of the possible ways in which we as teachers can help pupils to improve their understanding of word problems and their ability to solve them is to offer them a wide range of different problem-solving strategies for grasping and solving word problems.