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The ability to problem solve and make decisions for ourselves is a key thinking skill that is hugely important throughout life.

The greater your skill in this area, the better you are at searching for meaning; making predictions; generating possible solutions; justifying and understanding how you solved something; coping with challenges and making connections to things you have learnt in the past.

Luckily, numeracy provides a wonderful opportunity to constantly sharpen these skills and to put them into practice. When faced with a problem in maths, there are four key steps to think about:

• What I know (Think): read the problem and think about what you are being asked.
• What I need to know (Identify): decide what maths strategies you will need to approach the problem. Do you have all the information? What steps are needed?
• What I need to do (Employ): use your maths strategies to solve the problem.
• What I did (Review): Were you successful in solving the problem? Did you have any difficulties?

To help make these steps a bit clearer to follow and understand, there are a number of easy to remember acronyms (a word whose letters are the first letters of other words – think of it like an Acrostic Poem) and a few examples of these are listed below.

You might already be familiar with some of the examples or maybe you’ll find a new way that you really like.

Always remember to use what works best for you.

RUCSAC

• R – Read the question and underline the important bits
• U – Understand/Underline: think about what to do and underline key words and numbers
• C – Choose how you will work it out
• S – Solve the problem
• A – Answer
• C – Check

CUBES

• C – Circle the question words
• U – Underline key words
• B – Box any key numbers
• E – Evaluate (what steps do I take?)
• S – Solve and check (does my answer make sense and how can I double check?)

RICE

• R – Read and record the problem
• I – Illustrate your thinking with pictures, models, number lines etc
• C – Compute, calculate and check
• E – Explain your thinking

QUACK

• Q – Question – read it carefully
• U – Understand – underline or circle key elements
• A – Approximate – think about the size of your answer
• C – Calculate
• K – Know if the answer is sensible or not

By following these steps each time, you are giving yourself the best opportunity possible to be a successful problem solving detective!