Here is a scenario that plays out in thousands of Dubai homes every week: your child completes a page of addition and subtraction sums quickly and accurately. Then they turn to the word problems at the bottom of the page and freeze. “I don’t understand what it’s asking.” “I don’t know what to do.” The maths ability is clearly there — so why can’t they apply it when the question is in words?
This is the comprehension gap, and it is one of the most common and most misunderstood problems in primary maths. It is particularly prevalent in Dubai, where many children are learning maths in their second or third language.
What the Comprehension Gap Looks Like
Children with this gap typically show a clear pattern:
- Strong performance on bare number calculations (42 + 37, 8 × 6, 100 − 45)
- Weak performance on word problems testing the same skills
- Requests to “just tell me what to do” when faced with a worded question
- Random operation selection (“I’ll just add them”) when unsure what the question asks
- Giving up quickly on worded questions while persisting with number work
- Frustration that they “can do the maths but not the questions”
This pattern tells us something important: the problem is not mathematical ability. The problem is the translation layer between everyday language and mathematical operations.
Why It Happens
Word problems require a chain of skills that pure calculation does not:
- Read the text fluently — processing sentence structure, vocabulary, and meaning
- Identify the relevant information — filtering out distractors and focusing on key numbers and relationships
- Understand the mathematical situation — recognising what is happening (combining, separating, comparing, sharing)
- Select the correct operation — deciding whether to add, subtract, multiply, or divide (or some combination)
- Perform the calculation — the step most children can actually do
- Check the answer makes sense — interpreting the result in context
Steps 1–4 are where the comprehension gap lives. Traditional maths teaching spends most of its time on step 5 (calculation) and almost no time explicitly teaching steps 1–4. Children are expected to just “pick it up” — and many do not.
The Dubai Factor: Multilingual Learners
Dubai’s multilingual education environment makes the comprehension gap particularly acute. Consider a child who:
- Speaks Hindi or Arabic at home
- Studies in English at school
- Also learns Arabic as a KHDA requirement
This child may be highly capable mathematically but struggles to process English mathematical sentences quickly enough to work under test conditions. The cognitive load of translating from English to their home language and back adds processing time that native English speakers do not need.
Mathematical English is also peculiar. Everyday words have specialised meanings: “difference” means subtraction, “product” means multiplication, “altogether” often (but not always) means addition, “of” with fractions means multiplication. These double meanings trip up EAL learners and native speakers alike.
Types of Word Problems and Their Challenges
Not all word problems are equally difficult. The challenge depends on the problem structure:
- Result unknown (easiest): “Amira has 24 stickers and buys 13 more. How many does she have now?” The question directly tells you to combine, and the answer is the result of the calculation.
- Change unknown (harder): “Amira had some stickers. She bought 13 more and now has 37. How many did she start with?” The unknown is in the middle of the story, requiring subtraction even though the story describes buying (adding).
- Start unknown (hardest): “Amira gave away 15 stickers and has 22 left. How many did she start with?” Children must work backwards and add, even though the story describes giving away.
- Comparison problems: “Omar has 3 times as many cards as Yusuf. Omar has 36 cards. How many does Yusuf have?” The language “3 times as many” can mean multiply or divide depending on what is unknown.
- Multi-step problems: “A box holds 24 chocolates. Mrs Khan buys 3 boxes and gives 15 chocolates to her neighbours. How many does she have left?” Requires identifying and sequencing two operations.
Strategies That Work
The RUCSAC method:
- Read the problem carefully (twice)
- Underline the key information
- Choose the operation
- Solve the calculation
- Answer the question (write a full sentence)
- Check — does the answer make sense?
The “retell” strategy: Ask your child to read the problem, then close the book and tell you what is happening in their own words. If they cannot retell the story, they have not understood the problem yet — and no amount of mathematical skill will help.
Key vocabulary teaching: Explicitly teach the mathematical meaning of words: “altogether” (usually addition), “difference between” (subtraction), “each” (division or multiplication), “share equally” (division), “how many more” (subtraction/comparison). Create a word problem vocabulary wall at home.
Remove the numbers first: Give your child word problems with the numbers removed and ask them to identify the operation. “Sara had some sweets. She ate some. How many does she have left?” This isolates the reasoning step from the calculation step.
The Bar Model Approach
Bar models are one of the most effective tools for bridging the comprehension gap. They turn a worded problem into a visual representation that children can “read” mathematically.
For the problem: “Ali has 45 marbles. He has 18 more marbles than Hassan. How many marbles does Hassan have?”
A child might instinctively add (because “more” suggests addition). But drawing a comparison bar model immediately shows that Ali’s bar is longer, Hassan’s bar is shorter, and the difference is 18 — making it visually obvious that this is a subtraction problem.
If your child’s school uses White Rose Maths or Singapore Maths, bar models will already be part of their learning. Reinforce this approach at home.
Getting the Right Help
The key insight is that word problem difficulty is usually a comprehension and reasoning issue, not a calculation issue. This means the solution is not more maths drill — it is targeted work on reading mathematical text, identifying operations, and representing problems visually.
A tutor who simply gives your child more word problems to practise is missing the point. The right tutor will diagnose exactly where in the comprehension chain your child breaks down and teach specific strategies for that step.
At GetYourTutors, our primary maths tutors understand that word problems sit at the intersection of literacy and numeracy. We teach the reading strategies, mathematical vocabulary, and visual representation tools that turn word problems from a barrier into a strength.