Maths Fluency - Our Brick Walls
What is Maths fluency?
Mathematical fluency is the ability to quickly and accurately recall mathematical facts and concepts. It’s made up of 5 key parts – accuracy, flexibility and appropriate response, efficiency, automaticity, and number sense.
At St Joseph's Maths Fluency is built through ongoing daily practice of basic Mathematical skills. We use our Brick Wall Continuum to track, get feedback and set goals to improve the maths fluency of every student from Foundation to Yr 6. We focus on the core number skills of Counting, Addition & Subtraction and Multiplication & Division.
Using our brick wall students learn that to be a Mathematician we must develop our Maths Muscles by climbing up our brick wall of strategies. As we climb each brick we add to our skills and strengthen our Maths Muscles.
Fluency builds the foundations students use to tackle more complex, multi-step questions in problem-solving and reasoning activities, and it’s crucial to their success. Here’s why:
Mathematical fluency saves energy
Students have only so much energy. The more energy students spend on figuring out smaller questions, the less they’ll have when it comes to critically and creatively tackling the whole question.
If we’re to look at a student’s brain, those with high fluency skills would have efficient neural pathways, meaning there’s less energy spent and less time is taken for the question to be received and for the answer to be found.
The good news is that these neural pathways are strengthened with repeated exercise, like the practice they get each day using our brick walls.
By getting students to practice fluency, we are strengthening the mind muscles they need to do heavier lifting and for longer.
Math fluency builds confidence and reduces mathematics anxiety
Motivation, engagement and progress all rely on students’ confidence that they can complete tasks. For students with mathematics anxiety (the feeling of being overwhelmed or paralysed by mathematics), this is especially important.
Strong fluency allows students to work and see success independently, growing their sense of autonomy and confidence, and helping them see whole problems as small, achievable steps.
Fluency saves time
Hand-in-hand with saving energy, fluency saves time for students, and this has two distinct benefits: it helps students stay focused on the logical progression of problems and perform better in problem-solving.
Focus – In a multi-step problem that asks students to use several approaches (like a mix of geometry, algebra, fractions and so on), being able to recall or solve the minutiae with little or no effort keeps them from losing focus on their logical progression.
Better problem solving – Fluency alleviates these pressures; first, by enabling students to attempt to complete more complex questions, and by getting around the roadblocks of basic computations (like counting on fingers, writing down, working out or reaching for the calculator).
