Math Fluency

What is Math Fact Fluency??

Math facts fluency refers to the ability to recall the basic facts in all four operations accurately, quickly and effortlessly. When students achieve automaticity with these facts, they have attained a level of mastery that enables them to retrieve them for long-term memory without conscious effort or attention.

So what’s the big deal with math facts? Why in today’s day and age – with calculators and computers – do our kids really need to rote learn their basic addition, subtraction, multiplication and division? Isn’t this just ‘old school’?

BECAUSE . . . . . .

Math facts fluency leads to higher order mathematics

Through automaticity students free up their working memory and can devote it to problem solving and learning new concepts and skills (Geary, 1994). Quite simply, a lack of fluency in basic math fact recall significantly hinders a child’s progress with problem-solving, algebra and higher-order math concept.

Fluent math facts mean less confusion

Math facts are important because they form the building blocks for higher-level math concepts. When a child masters his/her math facts, these concepts will be significantly easier and the student will be better equipped to solve them faster. If the child spends a lot of time doing the basic facts, he/she is more likely to be confused with the processes and get lost in their calculations.

Math fact automaticity affects performance – not only in math

In later elementary, students have longer and more complicated computations to complete to check their understanding of various concepts. At this stage, if a student does not have his/her math facts committed to memory, he/she will spend a disproportionate amount of time figuring out the smaller calculations and risk not completing the test. This not only affects their performance in math class, but will also in other subjects, such as science and geography.

Less math anxiety

Math can be compared to languages in some ways. Just like you have to learn to combine letters into words and words into sentences – and we have strategies like phonics and sight words to help kids to learn to read - math facts are the foundation blocks for learning the next level of maths. There is rote learning involved in both language and math mastery. Math anxiety starts when children fall behind and can’t keep up. To avoid these anxieties, students’ early elementary years should focus on learning the foundation math skills needed for later years – math facts are among those important math skills.

NECESSARY STEPS TO BUILD MATH FLUENCY:

1) First, get the fact into memory, so that it can be recalled.

2) Second, develop fluency, or automaticity, so that it can be recalled without thinking.

3) Third, practice recalling the fact frequently enough to maintain automatic recall.

SOME IDEAS FOR HOME:

Tricks can work pretty well, especially for hard to remember facts. For example, counting up starting with the larger number, aiming for ten, compensation method, and double with adding 1 or 2.

Mnemonic Devices (or stories) have proven to be the best for students with learning disabilities, but they work for everyone. For example, “More on the Floor, Go Next Door, and borrow ten more.

Limit the facts to be learned at once. Sort a stack of flashcards into piles; those that are known automatically and those that are not. Practice one or two unknown facts at a time along with known facts until they become automatic.

Use timers. Each night, give 1, 2 or 3 minutes to answer as many math facts as possible given a sheet of problems or a stack of flashcards. Chart the number right and celebrate/reward increasing automaticity.

Use music. There are a lot of CD’s and some DVD’s that do this. One that comes to mind is Schoolhouse Rock, Youtube, etc.

Download Math Apps to your phone or Ipad for practice anywhere such as Math Evolveby Interaction Education and Zephyr Games.

Play oral math games in the car such as Triangle Math Facts. Give three numbers from a combination and the child names the associated facts. For example, Adult says, “Three, nine, six.” Child answers, “ 3+6=9, 6+3=9, 9-6=3 or 9-3=6.

Beat the Calculator is a game where a pair of players competes to see who can answer first. One player attempts to answer the fact on his/her own before the other finds it on the calculator.

Use the senses in combination to fire neurons and imprint memory. (Say and write, listen and repeat, look and say, trace and say, trace and write, sky write and say, choral recitation, move and say, clap it out, etc.)

Other Websites:

Addition/Subtraction Math Magician – www.oswego.org

That’s a Fact – www.harcourtschool.com

Math Baseball – www.funbrain.com

Addition/Subtraction MATHO – www.aplusmath.com

Save the Apples – www.playkidsgames.com