A Missouri school district is now making its math curriculum more gender inclusive, updating word problems and other language-based math equations with "they/them" pronouns.

For the study, researchers worked with 207 third grade students with and without math difficulties to see how working memory influenced their abilities to solve word problems.

The intervention proved to boost comprehension and help students synthesize and visualize information, which improved the students' math world problem-solving skills.

Story problems can help young learners grasp math concepts, but teachers must design and scaffold them carefully.