Addition and Subtraction Word Problems with Pictures

This Grade 1 word problems worksheet tells two small fruit stories — the kind where someone has a handful of apples and gains or gives away a few more. Under each story, a strip of fruit icons restates the math in pictures, so the child can literally count what the words describe. They read the story, lean on the icons as much as they need to, work things out on the dot-grid panel, and write the answer in the box.

Word problems are where arithmetic meets reading, and that meeting is exactly the point. The child must find the question hiding inside the sentences, decide whether the story is asking them to add or to subtract, and only then compute. The picture strip is the bridge: children who are not yet fluent readers can still reason through the mathematics, and the dot grid invites drawings and jottings instead of demanding bare mental work.

Print the PDF free and let the child retell each story aloud before solving — hearing the problem is half of understanding it. Fact family houses reinforce how the addition and subtraction in these stories relate to each other, and mental math within 20 builds the quick facts that make word problems feel easy.