How to Solve Subtraction Word Problems

There are 10 pencils on a desk. The teacher takes 6 pencils. How many pencils are left?

How can we solve this word problem? 🤔

⭐ There are four steps to solving word problems:

Read Carefully

Find Keywords

Write An Equation

Solve the Problem

Let's learn each step.

Let's re-read our problem:

There are 10 pencils on a desk. The teacher takes 6 pencils. How many pencils are left?

When you finish reading, ask yourself: "What's the problem asking me to do?"

⭐ A keyword gives you a clue about which operation to use.

Here are some keywords used with subtraction:

minus, lost, change, difference, fewer, need to, reduce, subtract, take away, remain, left, less

Do you see any keyword in our word problem?

There are 10 pencils on a desk. The teacher takes 6 pencils. How many pencils are left on the desk?

"Takes" and "left" are keywords that tell us that we need to subtract.

In this problem, the teacher is taking away 6 from 10 pencils.

Our equation is:

10 - 6 = ?

The last step is to solve the problem.

If you don't know the answer by heart yet, you can use your fingers, pictures, or a number line to count down.

Let's draw pictures:

$6 pencils crossed out$

You have 10 pencils. You take away 6.

10 - 6 = 4

Our answer is 4. We write a complete sentence for it.

There are 4 pencils left on the desk.

Great job! 🤗 You've got it!

Now, try the practice.

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