Internationally, educators are concerned about effective methods to empower students with skills to equip them
to function in a technological, global world. This paper reviews literature that explores the relationship between
mathematical problem solving and literacy, through mathematical modelling and top-level structuring of text.
The mathematical modelling problem solving process offers students an opportunity for learning mathematical
skills through what is very much a literary process. Top-level structure is an organizational strategy where
readers structure texts enabling identification and recall of a text’s main idea/s. An extensive search of recent
literature reveals strong relationships between reading comprehension and mathematical word problems
because text comprehension must interact with mathematical processes to create mathematical literacy. This
paper will argue that mathematical modelling and top-level structuring have a strong relationship due to the
literary structure of modelling tasks. Secondly, it will investigate implications of skills attainment from such
tasks as an empowering tool for the future.