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What is Fluency?
What is Fluency?
Procedural fluency, which we’ll also call fact fluency, is “skill in carrying out (computational) procedures flexibly, accurately, efficiently, and appropriately.” For too long, we have just focused on accuracy and efficiency. Now, we know how important all four are to achieving true fluency. Let's take a look at each component.
Flexibility refers to the students' ability to apply multiple strategies while using their knowledge of number relationships.
To exhibit accuracy, students should get the answer right most of the time.
If students are efficient, they use a reasonable amount of steps and time (usually 3-5 seconds for basic facts).
Students should be able to recognize when one strategy or procedure is more appropriate to apply than another.
How Should Fluency be Taught?
How Should Fluency be Taught?
Only about 30% of people are rote memorizers. Asking students to memorize their facts is therefore not an effective strategy to improve fluency for all of our students. So what strategies should we be using? What does the research say?
Flexible Learning Progressions for Fluency
A Research-Based Approach to Math Fact Fluency
Building Math Fluency Video Series and Starter Kit
From Memory and Memorization: There IS a Difference
How to Boost Fact Knowledge and Retention with these Tested Strategies
Why Children have Difficulties Mastering the Basic Number Combinations and How to Help Them
Reinventing How We Teach Math and Why We Should
Fluency Games
Fluency Games
“Studies show that, on average, using academic games in the classroom is associated with a 20 percentile point gain in student achievement.” (Haystead and Marzano, 2009.)
Dr. Karyn Purvis from the Institute of Child Development says: "Scientists have recently determined that it takes approximately 400 repetitions to create a new synapse in the brain - unless it is done with play, in which case, it takes between 10-20 repetitions."
Questions that focus on reasoning strategies and fluency to ask while playing games:
• How did you figure it out?
• Is there another way you could figure it out?
• If someone didn’t know the answer to ____, how would you tell them to figure it out?
• I see you used _________ strategy. When do you like to use that strategy?
• Which strategies have you used during this game?
Based on Math Fact Fluency by J. Bay-Williams & G. Kling (2019)
Communicating with Families
Communicating with Families
Many adults with childhood experiences learning mathematics through rote memorization are unaware of the value of developing reasoning strategies to support fact fluency . Therefore, it is critical that we share with parents this important process for learning facts as well as the role that games can play in the process.
5 Fundamentals of Math Fact Fluency Family Letter about Fact Fluency
Fluency Bookmark for Parents Family Letter for Making Ten
Family Letter for Pretend a 10 Family Letter for Doubling
Assessing Fluency
Assessing Fluency
Not only do timed tests lead to math anxiety, they also do not really tell us much information about why a student is struggling with fact fluency. Fortunately, there are much more effective ways to formatively assess students' progress towards fluency.
Assessing Basic Facts Fluency Rubric for Fact Fluency
Game Play Interview Prompts Interview Recording Sheet
Two-Prompt Interviews Observation Tools
Tool for Addition Facts Tracking Addition Facts
Tool for Multiplication Facts Tracking Multiplication Facts
Fluency Journal Prompts Math Running Records
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