One of the targets for Year 1 children is to solve simple word problems. Of course this can be very tricky for children who have yet to develop sufficient reading skills to work out what questions are being asked! Because of this many children will need help with either reading the questions of having the questions read to them.
This page also gives visual clues and again, practical apparatus such as real sweets or socks can be a great help before moving on to just having the written question.
Addition and subtraction are the two operations used here.