Small Group Frustrations

So I am still working with a small group of student. We are working on math, specifically interpreting and addition. So today there was a question "How many bears does Sarah and Joe have?" The teacher says the key word is "AND" and the students should be learning to add together those two groups. However when I asked the students the question only 1 out of 7 got it right. Two students wrote down 2 (which was how many Sara had) and 5 (how many Joe had) then when I asked them how many they said 25?! I could see where they were coming from so now I am rewording the worksheet and making it gave so it will be easier for them to see an action. I hope they will be able to do better on this one. We'll see tomorrow :)