This paper, based on Johnson-Laird's mental models theory (1983, 1996), is a sort of progress report of our project on mental modeling in problem solving, focusing on the difficulties that students of General Mechanics, a subject of the basic curriculum of engineering courses of the Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul, present to mentally model the statement of the problem. A qualitative methodology was used based on students verbal (during problem solving classes) and written (in quizzes and exams) discourse, during the period of time between the first semester of 1998 and the first semester of 2000. The topic was Kinematic of a material particle. Research findings seem to support our hypothesis that the mental representation of the statement of a problem, presented through linguistic discourse, accompanied or not of a pictoral representation , might be facilitated by the explicit teaching of the physical modeling of the situations involved in that statement.
