Division word problems present either sharing (how many in each group?) or grouping (how many groups?) situations. Students must identify the total, the known value (group size or number of groups), and what is unknown. Writing the division equation and solving completes the problem.
Sort word problems into 'sharing' and 'grouping' categories before solving. Drawing a diagram or using manipulatives to represent the situation before writing the equation prevents the most common errors.
You know your division facts within 100, and you've already solved multiplication word problems. Division word problems build on both — but they add one layer of difficulty: you have to figure out what kind of division situation you're reading before you can write the equation.
Division situations come in two varieties. Sharing (partitive division) asks: if I split this total into a known number of groups, how many go in each group? "24 apples shared equally among 6 baskets — how many per basket?" You know the total (24) and the number of groups (6); you're finding the group size. Grouping (measurement division) asks: if I pack this total into groups of a known size, how many groups do I get? "24 apples packed into bags of 6 — how many bags?" You know the total (24) and the group size (6); you're finding the number of groups. Notice that the equation is identical (24 ÷ 6 = 4) in both cases — only the story and what the answer represents differ.
The practical skill is labeling all three quantities in a story: the total (the whole amount being divided), the number of groups, and the size of each group. Two of the three will be given; the third is what you solve for. "48 students divided into teams of 8 — how many teams?" Total = 48, group size = 8, number of groups = unknown → 48 ÷ 8 = 6. Once you've identified which quantity is missing, the equation writes itself.
The connection to multiplication is deliberate. Division and multiplication are inverse operations, just as subtraction undoes addition. If 6 × 8 = 48, then 48 ÷ 8 = 6 and 48 ÷ 6 = 8. When a division fact is hard to recall, ask: "what times [the divisor] equals the dividend?" — and turn division into multiplication you may already know. Your prior work on multiplication word problems gave you experience identifying totals and groups; division word problems use exactly the same structure, just with a different quantity unknown.