95; West, 1977). The interpretation the selection of appropriate operation the important or operations, is also considered Lerch Hamilton, solving word problems (Kantowski, 1980 different ways in the 1970). These factors are and named problems include literature. However, most writers on solving word of the problem as computation, reading, and some form of interpretation One factor that factors important to success in solving word problems integrate seems to lack attention in the literature is the ability to A several skills into the solution of a single problem with notable attempt to investigate the types of difficulties children have solving word problems was that of Knifong and Holtan (1976: 1977) They gave the word problem section of the Metropolitan to 35 children. were responsible for 49% of the incorrectly solved Knifong and Holtan concluded that improved computational skills could have eliminated nearly half of the word problem errors" (p. 111. These computational errors, however, were made in the context of integrating computational skills with other skills necessary for the solution of word problems Knifong and Holtan leave unanswered the question of whether this percentage of errors would have been made in the context of a purely computational test. Knifong found in a later study (1980) that the Metropolitan Achievement Test is computationally more diffcult than other current tests. This suggests that the percentage of computational errors found in the 1976 report might be larger than would otherwise be expected. Knifong and Holtan (1976) state that their data neither confirm nor deny that improvernent of reading skills will lead to improvement in the ability to solve word problems. They do conclude, however, that it is dimcult to attribute major importance to reading as a source of failure (p