Abstract
This study examined an effective teaching method to teach a relation figure to fourth graders when solving word problems in elementary school. A relation figure is useful to understand the problem structure when the word problems include a word of "times" in the context. This study focused on three types of word problems called the problem of "proportion", "base quantity" and "the quantity to be compared". The experimental group was given three lessons which included learning a way of drawing a relation figure, solving word problems by using a relation figure and making word problems based a relation figure. The control group was not given any lessons. The result of post-tests showed that the percentage of correct answers on "base quantity" in the experimental group was higher than in the control group, and that the experimental group drew a relation figure when they judged the operation to solve the three types of problems.
