CUBES is a proven strategy for solving word problems. The acronym stands for Circle, Underline, Box, Equation, and Solve. The CUBES methodology breaks apart the large and daunting task of solving a word problem into chunks. If you teach someone how to swim, you wouldn’t just throw them off of a boat and tell them to swim to shore. You may even tell them all of the steps of how to swim at once. How well would this work? They would likely drown. Yet, we teachers do that all of the time when teaching word problems. We give the students a problem and say, “Solve it.”. If we use the CUBES method for swimming, as a teacher, you would likely teach them how to float first. Then how to kick. Then how to use their arms. Only after all of those steps are carefully practiced would we say, “Now put all of those steps together and solve the problem. Time to swim to shore!”.