Comprehending mathematical problem texts – Fostering subject-specific reading strategies for creating mental text representations

International audienceThe comprehension of mathematical problem texts has been identified as one of the essential steps towards solving modelling problems successfully. Understanding in this context means constructing an adequate situation model by using reading and understanding strategies. A separate strategy training might foster those strategies as studies indicate. Therefore, the presented study reports on a design research project with the aim of fostering subject-specific reading and comprehension strategies. Presented are further specifications of the processes of constructing mental text representations as well as insights into the use of strategies. The case study indicates that the fostered strategies contribute to different steps in the process of constructing mental text representations. Those strategies seem to be constantly used by the students to deal with word problems within the teaching-learning arrangement and might therefore be relevant for modelling processes in general