Just the Facts, Ma'am

While math standards stress the importance of conceptually understanding the four operations of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division, they also require that children be fluent with their facts. What is fluency? It's the combination of being automatic with fact recall AND being able to compose and decompose numbers for flexibility with numbers.

By the end of Kindergarten, children should be able to add and subtract within 5. By the end of first grade, children should be able to add and subtract within 20 and demonstrate fluency for addition and subtraction within 10. By the end of second grade, children should know from memory all sums of two one-digit numbers and be able to fluently add and subtract within 20. By the end of third grade, students should know from memory all products of two one-digit numbers. The single most important benefit of having fact mastery is that is frees up the working memory for more complex problem solving.

Starting in the 2018/2019 school year, Hollis Primary School will be using Dr. Nicki Newton's Running Records to assess each

student and keep them moving forward in fact mastery. Teachers will conference with each student and make sure that they are fluent with a particular fact strategy before moving onto the next. This approach ensures that students will not just memorize facts, they will be able to see the relationships between numbers and use these relationships when solving problems. Please click on the Addition or Subtraction Strategies subpages for more information.

Building fact fluency is an investment of time that will make a huge payout in your child's future math education.