Abstract: This paper is about schemes and how they can assist in the learning of word problems in mathematics. First the paper presents the theoretical background and working definitions for schemes suggested by cognitive psychology. Analysis of various types of word problems and the developmental trend that children exhibit in solving these problems follows. A special analysis is devoted to a number of constrained schemes that underlie common mathematical word problem types. The use of schemes is extended to open-end word problems showing that these too can be better solved methodically with the help of schemes.